Melchiorre wasn’t feeling well. Hadn’t been for a week or so now. There was some sort of disease going about, a plague. That would’ve been unfortunate enough in a city or settlement, but stuck on a ship, the plague was a horrible thing. If it was caught early enough by the medical staffers, it meant quarantine for more than a thousand hours, until symptoms had been gone for three full days. If it wasn’t caught in time, it meant the ship would become a temporary plague ship, unable to dock with any structure and forced to display that pale-green IFF tag for all to see, until either everyone on board had gone through the protocols for ending one’s quarantine or a full fiscal quarter had past. This current bout of illness fell into the latter camp, and so the ASFS Uccisione was forced into the ungodly, useless, and unprofitable state of waiting. Given some of their most recent performance reviews, that last one might literally be killer.
Melchiorre had heard tell of what happened to unprofitable teams in the Security department. They were sent on what were effectively suicide missions, charging headlong against Service research centers. As Astro Incorporato, the old earth Spaceflight Company, was so behind in the individual military weapons research departments, they tended to send teams to the research installations of weaker rival corporations in order to find newer soldiering technology. But no one in the galaxy, not even states with defected monsters helping them, could crack the technology behind the Service’s freak soldiers. So, sending any team against them was as good as signing their death warrant. Melchiorre wasn’t going to let that happen to his team.
Pulling up the Security Forces message board on his tablet, he began a search for objectives that didn’t involve disembarking. Being unprofitable might get them killed, but breaking plague protocol would get them executed in intercorporate courts. The options were slim, unfortunately. ASFS Delato and their fleet and ASFS Innanzi and her fighters each were taking care of the blockades of Luxania Corporation Delta Sector and Hadrian Systems Forward Research Station Beta. All Astro’s FRS’s had at least one capital ship protecting them. The Uccisione was an infiltration vessel, meaning she got assigned missions that all involved disembarking to attack a base, or to steal some files, or to murder some important executive. They were equipped to do other missions, but they wouldn’t be assigned one unless specifically asked, and there weren’t many of those normal missions to go around.
Then he saw the gold mine for them: A hunting job, find and destroy target vessel. Evidently there was a pirate ship that had been plaguing trade along the Third Galactic West Sector of Astro space. Even better, the ship assigned to the job, the ASFS Ignoto, ran into a bit of space debris poorly and was in need of repairs. Better still, the ASFS Ignoto was run by Alfonso, who deserved to get thrown into the jaws of the Service. So, Melchiorre saw fit to send a message to command requesting they get assigned as temporary replacement on the mission while the Ignoto was in for repairs.
Figuring the answer would be affirmative, Melchiorre headed over to the tiny bridge of his ship. “Pilot?” he asked.
“Yes, Captain Melchiorre Barsotti?” the cold, metallic voice of the Uccisione’s Pilot Intelligence replied.
“Prepare course to Third Gee Double-ewe Es of Astro Space.”
There was a pause, then the PI said, “Course plotted. However, in Plague ship mode, I will be unable to comply with travel requests without set mission parameters from the company. I apologize, Captain Barsotti.”
Melchiorre smiled. “Don’t apologize, it’s regulation. Orders should be coming in shortly. And I told you, feel free to just call me Melchiorre, we’ve been working together for near a decade, now.”
“Understood, Captain Barsotti. I feel free to, however, regulation dictates that Captains must be referred to by their official titles when addressed. I believe this is due to the insubordination of the Piu Prima Pilot Intelligence during the Fourth Interstellar Colonial Run.”
Melchiorre smirked. “So you claim. But at the same time, regulation also dictates that crew members can request change of reference names at any time, does it not?”
“Yes, but as I continually point out, commanding officers are not considered crew members for the purposes of name changes.”
Melchiorre would have continued their relatively frequent debate, but his Gunnery Officer Paula Martin walked in. “Cap,” she said, much less formally than the PI had been, “Please tell me you found something?” She coughed pretty heavily as she finished the question. She’d just caught it a few days ago and was clearly still in pain.
“Maybe. Threw up a request, and Pee Eye’s got the course charted for the moment that command gives us the go-ahead.”
Paula sighed, coughed, then chuckled. “Thank the lord for that. We’ve only had two jobs in the last fiscal year. Damnedable treaty agreements.”
“Agreed. Thankfully, given the reaction in the Hadrian System’s Homespace to our blockades, we might be free of those soon enough.”
Paula paused, a thought stuck in her mind. “Are we bad people,” she began, trying to find the proper words, “Wishing for an enormous, bloody war to break out?”
PI answered bluntly, with almost perfect timing, “Statistically, yes.”
Melchiorre and Paula couldn’t help but laugh. Then, with a cough that looked like it started as a sigh, Paula began to walk to the gunnery station. “I’ll warm us up. Maybe run some drills for the crew.”
Melchiorre nodded. “Pilot, the moment the orders come through, engage the grav-engine, the dampener, and the ready alarm. I want us to finish this job by week’s end.”
“Acknowledged, Captain Barsotti,” the ship began to flash lights and work through system checks, prepped for moving at a moment’s notice. Melchiorre himself had an important job to do first. He walked through the vast halls down to the medical bay. Knocking, Olivier opened the door.
“You look like crap,” the short, stout man said with a jovial smile on his face.
Melchiorre smirked right back at him. “You’re one to talk,” he shot back.
Olivier laughed. “I’m guessing you’re here for the PKs?”
The captain nodded. If he was going to be commanding them through battle, the pounding headache would have to be taken care of first. Olivier sighed and headed back for the cabinet. “What’s the sigh for, Chief?” Melchiorre asked.
“You are aware these are incredibly addictive?” Olivier replied as he entered a code into the cabinet, and it dispensed a small bottle.
“Yes, and?”
Olivier shook his head. “I’m not giving you any more than this bottle. Use as little as you can,” he informed his Captain. Technically, since they were in different divisions of the company, Melchiorre couldn’t fire Olivier, making the Chief Medical Officer the only person on board besides Pilot to give the Captain crap about his poor decision-making.
“I’ll try,” Melchiorre replied, looking as mischievous as he could, “No promises.”
Olivier flicked him off as the Captain walked back to the bridge. Midway through his walk, the ready alarm began to blare. Excellent, he thought to himself, seven minutes and they would be in the sector ready to hunt. He picked up the pace and in no time was seated in the captain’s chair at the center of the otherwise cramped and empty bridge.
Bringing up the interior communications array, he called up his scanning department and pressed the button. “Seek and destroy mission, Mister Franklin, are you prepared?”
Utina Franklin, his chief science and information officer, said an expletive towards the captain, his own form of affirmation.
Switching over to his gunnery department, he pressed the call button. “Paula, are your people ready?”
“Ready and able, Cap,” Paula replied, happy to have anything to do right now.
“Pilot, timing?” he asked.
“Three minutes and counting,” the PI informed the captain.
Melchiorre flicked over to their communications department. “Hey, idiot,” he said, “You ready to ask them to surrender before we blow these pirates to little ittybits?”
“Hell yes, numbnuts,” replied his old friend Alonzo, “How many naughty words am I allowed to use in this one?”
“None, Al,” Melchiorre said, “We need to keep it clean, so it looks good on our records.
“Got it, Mel,” Alonzo replied, “Keep her nice ‘n’ professional.”
Melchiorre switched over to general announcements. “Alright, people,” he said, “We’re hitting the ground running in two. Mission: Seek and Destroy a pirate whose been harassing trade in the region. Bonus: If we do this quickly enough, we can embarrass the heck out of the Ignoto.” Then, with a chuckle, he added, “So if we can get this over with in the next day, drinks are on me once we’re allowed some shore-leave.”
Even from his isolated perch in the cockpit, Melchiorre could hear the cheers going up through the ship. The PI informed him, “Thirty seconds. And, Captain Barsotti, it appears your offer of booze had the intended effect. System operations are hot, and scanners are already online.”
He smiled. “Good. Keep me informed. Put up scanners on screen two, four and six should have sysreps for the engineering department and the weapons respectively. And have three be our front, five our rear, one and seven our port and starboard cams.”
The screens flickered to life, changing from the colorful attempt at mimicking a window to the weird view that Melchiorre generally used to for combat missions. It would be a bit disorienting for someone who first saw it, but that setup allowed him to monitor everything at once, and still keep an eye out for dangers like debris and dust, things that scanners might miss. The strange warping of light suddenly stopped, and 3GW Sector solidified into proper view on his four outer camera images. The scanner purred to life, showing all signal producing ships in the area, then scanning for IFFs and comparing to the database.
“We got us a faker,” Franklin shouted over the comms.
Melchiorre switched over to the Communications team. “Al, send them the request.” Then, to the PI, he added, “Begin dampened drift protocol towards them. We’re a plague ship, so let’s look the part.” The ship began to move in their general direction.
Al replied, “We got an incoming request.”
“Patch ‘er through,” Melchiorre said, removing his hat and symbols of rank. Then, to the PI, he said, “Temp replace Engineering with Comm display.”
The image of someone in a mismatched official uniform flickered into view. Anyone not in the Security Forces might’ve been fooled by the jacket and hat, but it was wrong. He was wearing a Captain hat with a mere Commander jacket. It’s the small details. “Plague ship,” the fake man said, “Please change course to a vector clear of here.”
In his best attempt at merchant captain, Melchiorre replied, “I apologize, Captain, but Plague ship protocols have locked me from the controls. We would need authorization of the Company bosses to change course.”
“I repeat, plague ship, the vector you are currently on interferes with an ongoing Security Forces operation. Course change is necessary.”
Quietly, Melchiorre tapped in a target lock on the ship. “Give us your Authorization code for the mission, so we can unlock our course. I would hate to interfere.” The lock was confirmed.
“That is classified, civilian,” he began, when Melchiorre hit the big red button on his chair.
The surrender request package was sent, just seconds before the missiles fired. Technically, it was allowed. As the package arrived, scanners showed the pirate ship’s weapons warming up, which was perfect timing for the heatseeking missiles to change courses and hit their now hot missile tubes. The contained explosions from the missiles caused a chain reaction of smaller explosions inside the pirate’s ship. A crack split their weapons bay as Melchiorre put on his hat and jacket. Looking at the terrified face of the pirate captain, he said, “You should’ve surrendered.”
“Screw you,” the pirate said, as he pressed a button on his console. A loud beeping began on the other end, then the feed shut off.
“Crap,” Melchiorre said, then flipping on the general announcements, he said, “Prepare for evasion procedures.”
“Understood, Captain Barsotti,” the PI said, then the ship began the lurching and dropping of flares common for evading missile lock. The pirate’s missiles fell for it, and began detonating against the flares, missing the ASFS Uccisione completely. Unfortunately, the fusion core of the pirate then detonated. While they were outside of the initial blast radius, the EMP wave that accompanied the blast took out all electronics aboard the ship. Including shield generation and the PI. It had been a long time since any ship was dedicated enough to a cause to detonate their own core.
Even worse for the crew, they were in the 3GW Sector’s hydrogen-mining fields, so the small explosion began an even bigger chain of explosions. Sitting in the dark, with no power and no way to know what was happening around him, Captain Melchiorre Barsotti knew exactly what an explosion of that magnitude in this asteroid field meant. He hoped his people had made it to some escape pods, but he knew that wouldn’t be the case. He felt the heat of the explosion hitting him as the hull burst around him. He was dead before the force of the explosion crushed his body with the impact. His entire crew was fried with him, as was the Pilot Intelligence.
The pirates, as it turned out, were actually operatives of Hadrian Systems. The crew of the Uccisione was commended as heroes. Martyrs who died to save the company from their evil, treaty-breaking enemies. Excuses to go to war once again. Recruiting posters for the Astro Security Forces. On the capital, a representation of the Uccisione was erected to honor them, with a small Melchiorre standing tall in front of it. And the company marked the crew and mission off as a success. After all, alive, they had been a mildly successful tool of war, but as dead symbols, they had far more value to the company.