Fic: Altered Trajectory (cont)
After decelerating down to normalspace, the Falcon’s Claw took up station in geosynchronous orbit around Bolt Hole, directly over what was left of the planet’s main urban center. One of her fighters was set to patrol close to her, the other left in a “hot launch” position in the launch bay, while her remaining two were dispatched down to the planet. Rufus took up his new position as Hazel’s gunner, while to his extreme annoyance Mac did the same for Flamer.
“He’s not even a trained pilot,” Rufus muttered to himself, as their Brawler began its descent into Bolt Hole’s atmosphere.
“We need more than two pairs of eyes and ears down there, Ru,” Hazel said. “Speaking of which, mind your instruments.”
“Minding,” he grumbled, keeping his head down and his eyeballs centered on the holographic targeting display that was giving a constant feed from the Brawler’s oversized forward scanner. Around their ship, a superheated glow of plasma began to form against their fighter’s energy shields as they plunged deeper into the atmosphere. His stomach did not attempt anything unfortunate, mostly because Hazel wasn’t attempting any radical maneuvers and he’d been certain to eat a light breakfast.
“So how much of a pit is this place anyway?” she asked.
“It’s a failed colony world. The local environment is only marginally comfortable for most GSA members and it was oversold as being ideal for the frontiersman types. The mega-corp that founded the place was counting on the local spaceport keeping the economy propped up, since it does lie on the axis of several trade routes. But there was no reason for any ship to actually stop on the planet, so the founding corporation eventually went belly up and left the original colonists stranded, with no one around to pay for keeping the infrastructure up. Eventually a few pirate lords decided to make the place their base of operations.”
“They run the place?”
“In a manner of speaking. They’ve got different sectors of the port city staked out for themselves, and run the spaceport for mutual profit. Everyone down there is either a member of one of the pirate gangs, paying protection to a pirate gang or living on the margins of a pirate gang’s territory. Not a pleasant place to raise children.”
“Population?”
“Bit less than a hundred thousand at the spaceport. Perhaps a couple of thousand more people trying to survive by farming in the outback. Eighty percent of them are creo, like everywhere else, about fifteen percent are human, and the rest are a mix. Not too many of our folk, except for the sort that would find this place more hospitable than back home.”
“In other words, very anti-social sorts like the kind we’re pretending to be.”
“Precisely.”
The Brawler’s nose pulled up as the glow of the plasma faded, so Rufus felt safe to raise his head from the weapons display. Above was blue sky illuminated by a bright yellow sun, below were sickly yellow clouds, colored by the planet’s excess of atmospheric sulfur.
“Ru,” Hazel said, “I’m not getting any kind of signal from the port’s navigational beacons. I’m running this show just on the topographic maps that I uploaded from the Falcon Claw’s library. How am I supposed to land?”
“Find the port using the nav data, pick an empty spot and set down,” Rufus answered flippantly.
She turned to glare at him. “And what happens if someone else is trying to set down on that spot at the same time?”
“Assuming either of you survive, you exchange insurance information. Actually no, just landing on this planet is enough to get most legitimate pilots’ insurance either cancelled or jacked up through the roof.”
“Pirates. I hate pirates,” Hazel muttered, and started plotting a low and slow flyover of the port on her nav computer.
“Not too fond of them myself,” Rufus agreed, patting his artificial arm.
TBC