“Are you ready for this kid?” Jack asked, turning his head slightly my way while not taking his eyes off the space lane. I was nervous, “Of course I am, lets do this,” I said with as much false bravado as I could muster. I was sitting in the co-pilot seat of Jack’s frigate, The Pegana. It was a large multipurpose freighter, fighter and blockade runner that had been my home since sneaking aboard several years ago.

My name is Jonas Slate and I am a mercenary in training.

“That’s what I like to hear,” Jack said smiling, He leaned forward to push the ship’s intercom, “Toby leave the engines alone and get up here we’re next in line to land.” Toby was the ship’s mechanic, a hearty figure with a large appetite and a larger personality. “Keep your panties on I’m coming,” he bellowed from the down the hallway. Jack’s hands flew across the console pressing buttons and levers as the thumping of Toby’s boots came closer. “Whats going on, why haven’t we landed yet?” Toby asked as he filled the doorway, Jack let go of the controls and spun his seat to face his friend, “I’ve put her in a holding pattern for you. I need you to drop us off and wait at the coordinates in the navcomputer, Jonas gets us out or we end up captured,” Jack cast me a serious look. “Haha no pressure my boy,” Toby said smiling, trying to lighten the mood.

“I need you to take the helm while we suit up,” Jack said as he got out of his chair and traded places with Toby. I took one last look out the cockpit, Altair Orbital filled the viewport like a giant cylindrical space worm, spinning ever so slightly to generate gravity. The docking bay was a mail slot opening, outlined with flashing green guide lights. I waited for Toby to sit down so I didn’t have to squeeze past him and followed Jack.

Jack and I headed down to the cargo bay where all the gear lockers were kept. I went to the one with ‘Kid’ scrawled on the front in marker and opened it up. Pulling on my gauntlets with reinforced knuckles, I clipped my Compad on the my left wrist. The Compad was a small computer I had found and modified a few months ago because wireless networks are easier and safer to hack into than find than a computer with access. Grabbing an earpiece off the top shelf of the locker I threaded the wire under my shirt and down my arm, plugging it into the underside of the gauntlet. I fiddled with the ear plug to get it comfortable. “Alice are you there?”

“Of course, where else would I be?” she replied.

It was her idea to stow aboard the Pegana in the first place, ‘Let’s go on an adventure Jonas, let’s get off this planet and go see the universe’ she said.

I grabbed my leather holster that held my small holdout blaster and wrapped it around my thigh, clipping the top part to my belt. “Hey kid, you might need this,” Jack said from behind me. I turned around only to see a huge shadow flying towards me. I panicked and flailed at the air with outstretched arms. I caught a jacket. I held it up, it was a dark brown bomber jacket with pockets all over it. “Oh cool thanks.” I put it on, it was a few sizes too big but I’d grow into it, it was a little on the heavy side too but the weight was comforting and reassuring.  “Stuff your pockets with a few of these too, you never know if you might need them,” Jack said, sliding a box of grenades across the bench. “Grenades?” I asked, “They’re not lethal,” he said, “They just explode with a lot of sound and fury. Last thing we need on this mission is a body count.” I nodded and stuff and handful into my pockets.

“We are through the ray shields, prepare for dump and jump,” Toby called over the ship’s intercom system. I chuckled at jump and dump. It was the slang term for larger starships when they jettison their trash compartments just before or just after a long FTL jump. Jack was checking his gear was all in place and pulled a half helmet over his head, covering his eyes and ears but leaving his mouth exposed. There were sensors all over the helmet giving Jack 360 degree vision and extremely sensitive hearing. “I’m giving you a three hour window to get in, grab a ship and get out or you fail. Understand?” The light from the cargo bay casting strange reflections across his visor.”

“Three hours. Got it,” I said with a nod.

The ship bounced with a loud thunk, “What the hell Tobes,” Jack yelled into his helmet microphone. A voice came over the ship speakers, “Hey.  I’m a mechanic not a pilot.” Jack shook his head and made his way to the cargo hatch, punching the button that lowered the ramp. The cargo hatch opened from the bottom, doubling as the ramp with a well used wheeze and light slowly filled into the bay.

Jack stepped out first, stopping halfway down the ramp to take in the scenery. I had never been on a station like this, it was a tube, a city had folded around on itself with buildings, landing pads of various sizes and actual trees spreading out in both directions connecting to each other overhead in one continuous loop. There were ships flying the whole length of the station in a few lanes near the center where the gravity was the weakest. I made my way down the ramp past Jack trying to find the source of the artificial sunlight. Couldn’t find a light  anywhere, the illusion of standing on an actual planet was too good, there were even birds flying around, small seed eaters some, of which have parked themselves on the top of the Pegana’s engine bays.

Jack walked up beside me and put his hand on my shoulder, snapping me out of my childlike awe. He was a solid head and shoulders taller than me and his broad shoulders could be intimidating at times but i knew he was thinking the same thing as I was. Anyone who spends an extraordinary amount of time in space would. “Come on kid, we’ve got work to do and can’t spend the whole time sight seeing,” Jack said as he walked off the landing pad and towards a street lined with tallish glas buildings.

Bringing myself to a jog to catch up to him, I slowed down and match his pace. “Ok Toby, we’re clear. See you in a few hours,” Jack mumbled with his finger to his earpiece. The Pegana’s engine’s began to spin up and roar behind us. Toby started the takeoff sequence as soon as we had cleared the landing platform. Jack still had his fingers to the side of his helmet still in communication with Toby and nodding every so often, “Yeah I’ll try,” he paused, “Ha I hope not. We’ll need more than luck then,” Jack removed his hand. “What’s up?” I asked, “Nothing you need to worry about yet,” Jack replied. I shrugged it off instead of letting him bait me into another ‘I’ll tell you when you’re older’ joke.

We continued down the street till the buildings either side of us opened into a large area. It was a upper class tiered garden, you could easily land the Pegana on each of the three levels, probably twice on the middle one. There were people scattered all about, sitting on benches or laying of grassy patches relaxing, reading and basking in the artificial sunlight. Jack and I must have looked quite out of place with our jackets, weapons and Jack’s military like helmet.  But I followed Jack through the crowd, he didn’t look concerned at the people staring at us as he lead me down into a building on the second level of the garden. It was a bar or pub of some sort, filled with characters who we would fit in with. “Kid, go grab us a booth over in the corner while i grab us something to drink.”

I looked around and spotted an empty table over by one of the large windows. Leaving Jack behind I lept into the cushiony bucket seat on the wall side of the table and slid over to the window to get the best possible view of outside. We may have only on the second level but the building was situated on the crest of a hill as the lower level of the promenade swept away before connecting with another set of shops and apartments. “So Alice, any open networks nearby that we can get into, may as well get a start looking for a ship,”

“The only open ones i can find are the residential ones. If we’re looking for a shipping manifest or landing log we’ll need something a little more connected.”

I looked around the bar for a computer terminal or access port, something that could give Alice and I a way into the software of the station. I found it. I jumped out of the cushiony chair and sat down at the next table along the windowed wall.  Checking to make sure no one was looking in my direction I pulled a small multitool out of my belt pocket and began unscrewing the face panel off a small touch panel that controlled the window blinds. Leaving the last corner screw in place, I moved the touch panel aside to get to the wiring behind it. Whoever installed this did a terrible job, there were wires all over the place, no organization at all. Having another quick look around the bar to make sure the coast was clear, I brought my head close to get a good look inside as feeling with my fingers wasn’t going to work. There were several spare parts just underneath the first layer of wires.

I dug through another pouch on my belt for the matching cable and plugged into the wall socket. Sliding the panel back across to make it look a little less conspicuous, I plugged the other end of the cable into the Compad, “Ok Alice, go do your thing.”

“I’ll be back in a minute,” she said gleefully, happy to get out of the compad and into a bigger network. Jack came back with the drinks and sat down opposite me. “So, whats your plan of attack?” He asked.

I looked at him and smiled, moving my arm to show him the cable running from my wrist into the wall, “Already on it, she’ll be done in a moment,”

“You two are too cavalier sometimes, do you know what kind of security this place might have? Alice could be trapped behind a firewall or trapped in some automated system.” He took off his helmet and placed it on the table. “An asset like Alice should be protected at all costs,” he frowned and took a large mouthful of his drink. “It’s fine, Alice knows what to look for. She’s better at this stuff than you and I combined.” Jack put his drink down, “You’ll learn one day. So...you got anything?”

“Tell him I’m sending it to his Compad now,” Alice said in my ear, “Ok you can unplug now.”

“She’s sending you the data she pulled,” I said as I pulled the cable out of the wall and slowly moved the panel back in place, tightening the screws with my fingers so that it will hold. Jack had his head buried in his compad, swiping through the data that Alice sent. “What about this one?” He asked as he spun the compad to face me. It was a Mogli Type-9, a large multi-purpose ship that had just come onto the market, “Nah, next,” I swiped to the right, “I want a ship that I can work on and make my own, not some stock off the shelf thing. Jack took his compad back, “You’ve been spending too much time with Toby I think.”

“Better that than stealing some space rubbish,”

“Knowing you, you’re going to pick some space rubbish and I won’t be able to talk into getting something half decent. Oh here is a ship like Peggy, that could be good for you.”

“What model?” I asked between sips, “LT-3,” he replied. Putting my glass down, I gave Jack a sarcastic look, “The LT-3 older than yours,”

“You did want something to mod and fix,” he interjected with a smile, “Of course but something I can actually fly out of here, not something that is nearly as old as I am. Give me the PDA,” I snatched the computer from his hands, “Let’s have a look.”

I began swiping through the data Alice pulled, all these ships docked here-one of which could potentially be mine. “Wait go back one,” Alice said in my ear, snapping out of my trance. I scrolled back up and looked to Jack who was too busy staring out the window to notice I had stopped mindlessly swiping at his computer. The ship Alice directed me was an Estevez Explorer, a few years old but was ahead of it’s time when it was built. It was a medium sized ship, not as big as Jack’s Pegana but big enough to do everything you needed. It’s decided. I slid the PDA across the table at Jack and pointed to the ship, “I want that one,”

“An Explorer? You don’t want something a little bigger?”
“What for? It’s not like I’ll be hauling livestock between systems,”
Jack laughed, “It was one time and only because Toby thought he was more fluent in speaking Jarren than he was.”

Jack stood up, grabbing his computer, “Shall we go get your ship?” I lept from my seat and put the Explorer’s docking bay into the Compad on my wrist, “Let’s go.”

“Jonas, Jack!” It was Toby on the radio, we both put our finger to our respective earpieces, “You might want to get out of there, I’ve been monitoring radio chatter and you’ve been made, some low life recognized your helmet old friend.”

“Thanks Toby, we’re moving out now.” he looked at me with a stern face and slid his helmet over it, “Let’s go kid.”

“Don’t need to tell me twice.”

Jack flicked some coins at the bartender as we passed and exited the premises, the artificial sun still shining. “We should probably head to some of the lower levels and keep off the street, Alice which way?” Jack asked, “We need to head toward the center of the station, if we take the stairs at the bottom of the promenade then through the commercial district we should be there.” She said and Jack started walking as soon as she finished, jogging to catch up to his quick pace we reached the stairs in less than a minute, “Once we get underground whoever is following us will have to deal with closer quarters and more civilians running around. Might scare them out of starting anything, if something does go down I want you to get to the ship and get off station, meet up with Toby in orbit. I can look after myself.”

“You trained me to fight, I’m not backing down from some local thugs. We’ve dealt with worse than this.”

I also trained you to be smart remember. If something starts, you’re to bug out immediately.”

“Fine,” I said crossing my arms in defiance.

He looked at me, “This deep into Republic Territory it won’t be the ‘local thugs’ like you’re used out in the Border Zone. Just keep your head on a swivel and Alice, let me know if you hear anything.” I nodded and uncrossed my arms, placing them in my pockets with the grenades.

“Ok, straight ahead then left at the first intersection,” Alice informed us as we made our way through a wide hallway with markets lining each wall. We were walking up the middle away from most of the foot traffic and would be at the hanger shortly.

“Jonas, I’ve been looking into our new ship and the current owner, Slade Hor-a, seems to have gotten himself on the wrong side of the law in Colony space and has a pretty nice bounty on him.”

“Looks like you picked the right ship kid,” Jack chimed in. We turned left at the intersection and the hallway was surprisingly empty, there were no markets along the walls and was about half as wide as the last one. “This doesn’t look good,” I murmured under my breath, Jack grunted in agreeance. Sounds of footsteps started echoing up the hall behind us. Jack spoke quietly as we walked, “Count to three, throw the smoke and get to the ship,”

“Ok.”

Three. Two. One. Jack and I spun around at the same time like we had done many times before. Me with several smoke pellets flying from each hand, Jack with a pistol humming with pent up energy in each of his. Before us were several guards-covered head to toe in a flexible but solid armour. Two of them carried riot shields and stun batons, the rest with heavy duty laser rifles. The pellets hit the shields and blanketed the hall in a thick smoke. Jack started firing immediately, his visor filtered out the specially crafted cloud. The return fire was scattered and unorganized, bouncing off walls and all around the two of us. “Let’s move!” Jack yelled of the sound of laser fire and began running down the hallway. I grabbed my pistol from it’s holster and followed after.

“The corridor on your left, take that. It will let you cut behind the guards waiting for you,” Alice said, I saw Jack nod and turned into the bassage between stalls. We slowed to a jog and tried to make little noise to sneak up on our ambushers. “Flash,” Jack said quietly holding out his hand still watching the exit. I reached into my belt pocket and grabbed on of the flash grenades and handed it to Jack. “Alice, how far to the ship hanger from here,” he asked tossing the grenade in the air, getting a feel for its weight. “Across the hall and two hatches down,”

“Ok kid,” he turned to me, “That ship is yours. Get onboard and give me 2 minutes, if i’m not on by then I want you to get out into space and rendezvous with Toby. I’ll meet up with you shortly after,” I began to protest-he continued, cutting me off, “No, what happens if the guy is still with his ship? We can’t fight him and hold off these goons at the same time. We have to split up. You’re ready for this.” I nodded. Footsteps from behind us were echoing up the alley way, the first group must have cleared the smoke. “Ok let’s do this.” I said.

Jack peeked around the corner and tossed the grenade, he ducked back behind cover and raised both pistols to face height. There was a loud pop of the grenade ,yeling and sounds of weapons dropping to the floor as the group were blinded. Jack waited two seconds after the pop and jumped out, pistols sending bolts of ionized plasma at our attackers. I followed as split second after Jack and the opposite way down the corridor. “Here’s the door,” Alice informed me. I punched the unlock button but the firefight must have triggered a lockdown of the area. I ripped off the face of the panel and started pulling out wires, then reconnecting the green to red and blue to yellow. The door wheezed as it slowly began opening. I looked down the corridor toward Jack he had dropped four guys and was fist fighting the remaining two, “GO!” he yelled as he saw me watching. I ducked into the hanger, leaving the fighting behind.

There she was, my new ship. She was red with a silver stripe down the center, two large engine pods pushed out from her sides and were purring like they were waiting for me. The cockpit was dark but looked big enough for two people or just Alice’s personality. Hor-a was nowhere to be seen. The landing ramp was down. I headed towards it listening to any sounds of the pilot. Running my hand along the hull of the Explorer, the smooth curve of the hull felt like home already. “Alice, can you get inside?”

“Not without an access port, there is some serious wireless encryption on this.” I raised my weapon as I reached the bottom of the ramp. Holding it in front of me, pointing it at every shadow as I made my way into the ship. It was more spacious than I expected, a single walkway lined with bulkheads and lockers, a hatch to the left was partially open revealing a small bathroom and opposite was another hatch that lead to the modestly sized cargo bay. There was a door at the top of a 3 rung step ladder that lead to the cockpit, leaping up the ladder in one bound. The cockpit had been modded beyond civilian standards, there were thick cables connecting several of the instrument panels together and the seats looked like they had been replaced recently, “Ok Alice, welcome home,” I took off my gauntlets and placed them next to a bank of sockets, plugging my Compad into several of them, letting Alice transfer out. There was a helmet sitting on the pilot’s seat, same colour as the ship with a silver strip up the center, a visor split the front wedge shape in half. I holstered my pistol and picked the helmet up, it was of solid construction but light weight.

“Put my helmet down kid!” A voice from behind me yelled. I dropped the helmet and raised my hands in surprise. “Drop your pistol too, I don’t want you to do anything stupid,”

“Ok, i’ll place it down. I don’t want it to go off if I drop it.” The guy who is assume was Slade Hor-a nodded and kept his rifle leveled at my midsection..I reached down and grabbed my pistol and bent down, putting it on the floor. “Now get out of my cockpit. Slowly.”

I stepped down the step ladder, making sure I planted myself firmly on each rung as I descended. “Now, who are you and what do you want,” Slade asked me.

“I want your ship actually, it’s a real beauty. Has a solid feel to it.”

“Well she isn’t for sale boy,”

“That’s fine, I was actually tasked with stealing it,” I said keeping my calm as Slade raised the weapon at my face, the rifle hummed with intent. “You’ve got a mouth on you, I should blast you right now and get out of here before that brawl outside spills into the hanger.”

I shrugged and took a step towards him. Slade move forward as well, not going to be intimidated by someone half his age.

The lights turned on, “What the hell?” Slade asked, looking around. “NOW!” Alice yelled over the ship comms and ducked out of the gun as Alice fired the atmosphere scrubbers, she was now in complete control of the ship. Blasting supercooled oxygen right into Slade’s face, he started firing his gun wildly, I ducked left and forward in a boxer’s weave coming up beside Slade and with a quick grab and twist of his wrist disarming him. The heavy rifle dropped to the floor with a thud and a whine. “Jonas, I just got a message from Jack. He’s not gonna make it, we’re to get out of here and meet Toby,” Alice said as I ducked a right hook from Slade, “No we wait,” I returned the punch. “We have to go Jonas…”

“Alice, we wait. Can’t you. See I’m busy?” I ducked another punch and spun behind Slade swinging a knee at his kidneys. He made an ‘Ooph’ noise as all the air left his lungs, “Who else is here? What have you done to my ship?” He asked as he turned to face me. He may be the more experienced fighter but i have speed and the energy of youth on my side.

The ship shuddered, Alice begun the take off sequence. “STOP IT NOW!” Slade cried and charged at me, I sidestepped and tripped him hoping he’ll hit the door and knock himself out. He didn’t. Alice decided to accelerate right at that moment, throwing me to the floor and throwing Slade straight out the back door onto the hanger floor.

Well there goes my first bounty.

“Alice! What the hell was that?” I yelled as I pulled myself to my feet. Oh crap the hatch wasn’t closing, I could see the purple glow of the Ray Shields through the cockpit door...we will be in space any second. Grabbing the railings on either side of the short ladder I catapulted myself into the cockpit and slammed the hatch shut. There was a hiss as the cabin pressurised. I flopped onto the floor exhausted and sore from where I was thrown seconds ago. “Alice...what are you doing? We just lost almost a year’s worth of credits.”

“I’m sorry but I needed to get a message from Jack to Toby.”

“A message!? Can’t you just hit up his comms like normal?” I was trying to stay calm,

“They were jamming the whole sector, we had to launch,” She replied, sounding genuinely sad.

“So whats this message and why is it so important?” I asked as I pulled myself to my feet. “I can’t tell you.”

“You can’t...why not?”

“It’s for Toby only,” she replied, “To hell with this,” I jumped into the pilot’s seat, pushing the helmet to the floor, all the control panels lit up-projecting holographic displays and controls, “I’m turning this ship around. We’re going back for Jack.”

The controls were unresponsive, “I can’t let you do that, we need to meet up with Toby,” she said.

“Alice I swear. Unlock the damn controls!” She was silent. I learnt a long time ago that you can’t win an argument against her. I slouched in the chair and let her fly.

“Jonas are you there?” I slapped the communications panel, opening up a channel to the Pegana, “I’m here Toby, what’s going on.”

“What’s going on? What’s going on is that you are somehow transmitting from a flying junk pile,” he said laughing, “That’s the ship you went with?”

“Hey, there is nothing wrong with this ship. But seriously we need to go back for Jack, we got separated.”

“No, first things first, I need you to get out of the system immediately. I’m sending you some co-ordinates, I’ll meet you there in 2 days and explain as much as I can. Now go, get used to the ship and i’ll see you soon.”

I sighed, “Ok Toby, over and out.” I closed the communication down. I grabbed the flightstick and wiggled it. The maneuvering thrusters fired in perfect time with my movement. Alice had unlocked the controls.

I jammed the throttle to max and the ship sucked me into my seat, the acceleration was unreal. Stomping hard on the left pedal and swing the flight stick all the way to the right I put her into a barrel roll around the Pegana as I flew past, laughing the whole time. “Alice are you there?” I asked the empty seat next to me. “Where else would I be?”

“How do you like the ship?”

“Its more spacious than your Compad. I have compiled a list of upgrades we could do. First off we need some more firepower and maybe you could have a look at the FTL drive, could tweak it to get a little more jump range out of it.” She continued with the list but I was too absorbed in flying my own ship to listen.

I spun around the the navigation and scrolled through the menus till I found the coordinates that Toby had sent through, they were an uninhabited system on the edge of Republic Territory. Only a few hours jump from here so got a day and a half or so to go for a wander and put the ship through it’s paces. “Jonas? Jonas are you listening?” Alice asked,

“Yeah yeah what was that?”

“What do we name the ship?”

I let go of the controls, letting her drift on her own inertia. “How about...The Wanderer”

She laughed, “Very fitting.”

“I thought so...So what do we do now?” I asked Alice, “Well we have 2 days to meet Toby in a system that is several hours away. We have plenty of fuel. I say we go exploring,”

“Ok let’s go-” I slapped the flight stick and the ship spun in kind, pointing us no where near the system we were meeting Toby at, “-this way.”

I reached over and flipped up the navigation map and ran our vector through a list of star charts to make sure we wouldn’t fly through a sun or planet. A green tick appears next to our flight path. “Let’s get outta here.” I said as I jammed the throttle to max and pulled the lever , activating the FTL drive. There was a hum that resonated throughout the ship as the drive began to spin up. Alice begun counting down, the hum became louder turning into a whirring crescendo. “Two. One,” Alice said as the stars streaked into line of light and blurred together as we began moving faster than the speed of light. 

And we were off.