Starship Repo Ch. 1 - Want All the Comments (Patreon)

Updates from the woods! I can tether my phone to my tablet to post once a day, so that's what I'm going to do.

Not the biggest amount of actual story today, but it's a first taste as I had to do some basic plot and character prep first. I also started this chapter and then lost about a third of it due to offline/online shenanigans. I'm hoping to get a lot more done daily this week! 

Also, due to working on a tablet, I can't include Epub/PDF files. Sorry!

STARSHIP REPO

Chapter 1

System: ZR702.3 ‘Serin’s Pearl’

Planet: BAJ450.6655D ‘Opalescent’

Big Ol’Ton’s New & Used Space Liners

The wind didn’t help with the heat, it just kicked up dust and spread it around, and Rake asked himself for the third time that day what idiot had named this place. Pearls were created by water creatures, and there wasn’t an ounce of it to be found one this damn planet - everyone knew someone had been getting creative back when the ass end of the Zolani Cluster was being explored, but this just felt ironic and petty.

“You see them?” Emerald asked over the comm.

Rake reached up and triggered his from the shoulder unit on his worksuit. He’d changed into it once Brick and Widget had gotten on board the target but it wasn’t helping with the dust or the heat, it just made him look more official for the inevitable. “Yeah, I see them. Looks like that speeder is bouncing off the dirt.”

The speeder in question was still a ways off, and Rake lifted his rangefinder and zoomed in on it. The little jerryrigged flatbed was the same unit that Ol’Ton had given him a tour of the starship lot eariler that day cycle. The Pecomini owned almost fifty acres of dust covered rock on a planet of dust and rock, and he had fifty-seven starships ranging from little single-being atmospheric delivery jumpers to big transport cruiers which were just warehouses with engines strapped to their asses. None of them could really be considered space liners but the branding sounded better than what they were - broken down pieces of crap. Rake’s best guess was that maybe seven of the starships on the lot could actually turn over their engines and get off the ground.

Hopefully the Beshel-class freighter they had come for was one of them.

“Widget, we’re going to have a problem in about a minute,” Rake cued his comm. “Please tell me you’ve got this thing ready to fly?”

“It’s a mess. I think there’s a stinky, dead spacebat in the exhaust shoot!”

“Will she fly, sis?” Rake asked.

“Not if you keep bugging me.”

“Can’t rush art, kiddo,” Brick’s gruff, staccato voice clipped through the comm.

“Can’t rush art,” Rake mumbled to himself, rolling his eyes, then cued the comm again. “Alright, I’m going to need to run interference here. Try to pick up the pace.”

Brick just responded with a double click of the comm, acknowledging he’d heard.

The rangefinder shower Rake that Ol’Ton was driving the speeder, his squat and shelled Pecomini body crammed into the driver’s seat. The flatbed was filled with the big Guberdammer security guard that Rake had seen at the prefab office shed earlier - he had six arms and could probably pick up the speeder and carry it faster than it was flying, but also seemed to be a particularly dopey member of the powerful species. There were also two or three Lincits in the back with him, the smaller insectoid race worrying him more than the big guy since they were hivemind drones and would care little for their own lives. They were the engineers that supposedly maintained the ships on the lot.

Sighing to himself, Rake flipped open the covering on his plasteel tablet and opened up the official files he was going to need. This was probably going to get messy.

It took another minute for the speederto finally come to a stop, the lower guidance array actually grinding against the bedrock under the dust as it lowered to the ground.

“What the vents are you doing!?” Ol’Ton yelled, his voice coming out warbelled as he struggled out of the drivers seat. “Get away from my merchandise! Tours are by appointment only.”

“I’m not here for a tour-”

“Hey, are there people on my ship?” Ol’Ton growled and turned to his big Gruberdammer employee. “You, meathead, get him out of here!”

The Guberdammer hummed to himself as he hopped down from the flatbed, two of his arms cracking their knuckles in front of him while another two stretched above his head. “Yarp.”

“Hold on,” Rake said, holding out his hands, one empty and the other holding his datapad facing them. “My name is Rake Solar, I’m a bonded worker for Solar Repossession and Insurance, and acting as a legal appointed agent of OmniBank.”

“OmniBank!” Ol’Ton grunted as he managed to pry himself out of his seat and hopped down to the ground. Most of his body consisted of his exoskeletal mottled blue and black shell, and as he landed his insectoid-like head bobbed up and done before his eyestalks slithered out to their full height. “I don’t have any deals with OmniBank. All my financing is through the MultiCredit Unions.”

“I know,” Rake said, still holding his arms up to try and pacify the big Gruberdammer that was looming slowly towards him. “Unfortunately for you, I’ve identified the vessel behind me as the Mark’s Meatwagon which is currently flagged for reposession due to missed payments.”

“You have no evidence that this is the ship you’re looking for,” Ol’Ton growled, stomping forward on his wide, flat feet. “I bought this ship fair from a licensed dealer out of Vkik III - I even have the tags on file. And you didn’t identify yourself as a legal representative of OmniBank when I gave you a tour of my lot, which makes this an illegal seizure.”

“Well, first off, I when I took your tour I wasn’t acting on OmniBank’s behalf,” Rake said. “I was a private citizen until I positively identified the ship. And as for evidence, you definitely scraped all of the designation RIDs off, but I still got a partial hit when you were telling me all about the custom ventillation system. You were also helpful enough to turn show me the engines, which let me get a radiation read that matched the signature of the Meatwagon, and the system backup ID on the stock transponder is stil registered to the previous owner. Also, scrubbing the paint off the top just made a big clean spot spelling out the name. I could practically see it from space.”

Ol’Ton’s mouth gaped open and closed several times, his big beady eyes staring unblinking at Rake as he processed this news.

“Now, I’m taking this ship unless you can show proof of payment for the full missing amount, which…” Rake checked the paperwork. “Is 783 thousand units and change.” The fact that the Pecamini was selling the ship for 620 thousand, and had dropped the price to 530 when he thougtht Rake, in disguise, was interested told Rake that it wasn’t likely to happen.

“So, what? I’m supposed to just let you take my merchandise?” Ol’Ton growled. “Maybe I just have my boys here wring your neck and bury you out in the dust?”

“I guess you could try that,” Rake said. “It wouldn’t exactly go well for you though.”

“I’ll take my chances. Shoot him,” Ol’Ton said, turning to the Lincits that had hopped off the speeder behind the Gruberdammer. “Kill anyone on board.”

That would have been very, very bad for Rake. Gruberdammers were known for throwing their enemies around and into things with their six arms, while Lincits were almost equally known for opening fire and not stopping until well after their ammunition had been expended - something about the hive mind losing track of ammunition counts between drones.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Rake said, his voice raising as he raised his hands higher.

“OminBank Reporeps aren’t allowed to carry weapons during a reposession,” Ol’Ton laughed. “What are you going to do, fistfight my security?”

“Yeah, I don’t have a blaster,” Rake said. “But I do have that.”

Rake pointed up in the sky and, right on time, Emerald brought the ship down in a roar of engines to hover directly over the Meatwagon. The backwash of the exhaust ports on the compact tugship blasted the dust in a swirling cloud away in all directions, leaving everyone blinking for a moment as they covered their faces. The SolaRepo IV wasn’t exactly a flashy ship, or a speedy one. Or particularly large. But it’s stocky shape was half engines and the wind gave a much more dramatic effect than it might have been worth.

“I’ve had an open comm line since you walked up, by the way,” Raked said, then asked over his comm. “Emmie, you got the threat recorded for the Omni file, right?”

“Got it,” Emmie said, her voice booming out of the external loudspeaker on the tugship.

“So, if you decide to attack me or my crew,” Rake said. “My fabulous pilot up there is going to use the only weapon our ship is allowed to have to make you pay for it - she’ll turn our engines on you. And, honestly, she might do that anyways because she doesn’t like me all that much so I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s already got her finger on the throttle.”

“You know me so well, Cap,” Emmie said through the loudspeaker. Rake had left the comm open so everyone on the crew could hear how things were progressing.

Ol’Ton said something in a gibbering language to the Lancits that Rake’s universal translator didn’t understand. The little device most people had implanted in their aural sensory organs wasn’t a decryptor - it held the fifty most common languages across the galaxy, plus you could get another dozen or so local ones updated into the firmware. Whatever Ol’Ton had spoken, he’d probably picked it specifically so he couldn’t be understood.

Luckily, Rake was good at reading people. Even people with bug faces.

“Brick, Widget, we’re about to have issues,” Rake mumbled for the sake of the comm. “Secure what you’ve got. Emmie, get ready to haul this thing out of here.”

“We’ve still got damage on the fourth grapple,” Emmie replied over the comm.

“Then we’ll do it with three,” Rake grunted. He’d started slowly backing away from Ol’Ton and his goons. The little Lancits were garbling looking antsy. “I’m running out of time out here.”

At that moment the engines of the Meatwagon thrummed to life, shooting up a whole new wave of dust swirling around the ara.

“I got it!” Widget crowed over the comm channel.

Rake backed all the way into the landing ramp. “Pleasure doing business with you!”

The Pecamini snarled at him and then turned and barked an order at his employees. The Gruberdammer started moving towards Rake and ship with a confused look on his face, and the Lancits pulled out little hand blasters and started shooting. The first laser blasts were the most dangerous, and Rake fell back onto the ramp to use the bracing hydraulic support to give him some cover. Thankfully once they opened fire the three little insectoids just kept pulling their triggers wildly and the Meatwagon caught the blasts on it’s hull.

The entire ship groaned as it lurched into the air, and for a second Rake thought the boarding ramp was going to fall straight off the bottom of the freighter, but then he was holding onto the hydraulic as the ground started to lower away beneath him. At least, it was until two big hand covered red fur on the knuckles grabbed onto the ramp from below.

“Nope! Not today,” Rake said and stomped on the fingers.

It didn’t do anything.

“Oh, crap,” Rake said and stomped again, but a third hand was now holding onto the edge of the ramp and the Gruberdammer’s head pulled into view as he was deeply frowning. It was like the big guy wasn’t sure why he was doing what he was doing, but definitely knew that he should be doing it.

“Kid, need you in the cockpit,” Brick called over the comms. “We’ve got a problem.”

“Little busy!” Rake shouted, trying to stomp on the Gruberdammer’s fingers again but almsot getting caught by a big hand instead.

The ship lurched again, this time heaving up and down hard enough that Rake bounced off the landing ramp, whacked his head on the seal above him, and then hit the ramp hard.

The good news was that the huge lurch caught the Gruberdammer by surprise as well, and he’d been in the middle of pulling himself up onto the ramp and was off balance enough that he let out a little “Urk!” as all six of his arms pinwheeled and her fell backwards into open air.

The bad news was that there was a distinctly dangerous sounding whine from the starboard engine of the Meatwagon that wasn’t stopping, and as Rake blinked his vision back into focus he saw that it was smoking heavily.

“Shitshitshitshitshit,” Rake mumbled to himself as he picked himself up off the boarding ramp and stumbled up into the ship, slapping the worn ‘close’ button at the top. The middle interior of the vessel was one big open cooled storage unit the previous owner had used to ship, or possibly smuggle, meat and meat-byproducts. Rake had to stumble his way to the ladder that led into the front cockpit area, almost slipping twice before he managed to get up into the short corridor. The lurching of the ship, and a loud bang somewhere behind him, didn’t help matters.

Finally popping into the cockpit, Rake looked to the pilot’s chair. “Brick, what’s the matte-”

“Rake, I’m flying the ship!” Widget grinned at him. His kid sister had her usual energetic, spunky gleam in her eye hat had gotten her into plenty of places she shouldn’t have been at the age of eight. She was wearing the custom, miniature version of the rest of the crew’s work jumpsuit that Rake had gotten her when he’d convinced their father to let him take her aboard rather than leaving her back with the old man. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a couple of little buns on top of her head the way she liked Emmie to do it for her, and if it wasn’t for the fucking dire circumstances Rake might have actually thought it was cute.

“Widget? What the-?” Rake pushed forward and slid down into the copilot seat, ot having time to pry his sister out of the main one. “Brick, why the shit is my sister piloting this ship!?”

“Wait, that’s Widget piloting?” Emmie asked over the comms. “Good job, kiddo!”

“Not. Helping,” Rake grunted at the same time Widget cued her own comm, “Thanks, Emerald!”

“Had to let her, Rake,” Brick grunted through the comm. “I’m a little busy down here. This pig ain’t gonna fly for long.”

Rake slapped a couple of the buttons on the panels and the double joystick went live in front of him as he took control of the ship. “How much longer can you give me?” The readouts said the starboard engine was sputtering, trying to restart but failing, and the port engine was straining under the extra pressure and quickly redlining.

“Maybe thirty seconds,” Brick grunted.

In all honesty, Brick probably should have been the one up front and Widget should have been in the back with the engine. Brick was a decent engineer, but a better computers tech and he’d handed off all the mechanics work to Widget over on the SolaRepo. She was like a natural magician with anything that ticked, clicked our thrummed, and it infuriated Rake to no end that her usual reponse to being asked how she did what she did was that she ‘just talked to the engine to find out what’s wrong.’

But Brick also had a major soft spot for Widget, and there was no way he would put her in the sort of danger that being wedged between two near-exploding engines mid-flight would be.

There was another bang that rocked the ship.

“Make that ten seconds!” Brick shouted.

“Oh, fuck,” Rake grunted. “Emmie!”

“What, do you need saving or something?” Emmie asked over the comms.

The SolaRepo zoomed in over the cockpit of the Meatwagon and Rake watched the sensors while his hands gripped the joysticks hard enough that his knuckles cracked. The metallic clang of the first mag-grapple hit, quickly followed by the second.

“Hang on to your panties, folks. Things are about to get bumpy,” Emmie said. Then, more quietly and likely not intended to be over an open mic. “Come on, you piece of junk. Shw me what you got.”

The Meatwagon lurched again and both Rake and Widget got jammed back into their seats. The internal gravitational stabilizers were either shot or went out when the engines died. Rake struggled and reached over to put a hand on Widgets chest - neither of them had the seat harnesses on and they were dangling back behind the chairs.

Kroiinngggg!

The Meatwagon swung, and Rake half slipped from his chair and bashed against the side bulkhead of the cockpit, but his hand stayed planted on Widget’s chest to keep her safe. Then the ship swung back the over way. One of the mag-grapples had snapped.

“Emerald!?” Rake shouted

“Just- a- setback- is all,” Emmie grunted through the comm.

Another metallic clank, barely heard above the clanging and groaning of the heavy freighter, and the ship jumped as it heaved upwards. Emmie had managed to get the third mag-grapple in line and had hooked the Meatwagon. The fiery glow of escape velocity burning out of an atmosphere washed over the front cockpit display as the gravitational forces mounted, pushing Rake and Widget into their seats again.

The pressure was huge, but soon the weight started to lesson and zero-g took over as both ships made it through the outer atmosphere and into space. Rake was sweatting bullet, felt like he needed to puke and shit at the same time even though her chest was tight and his ass was puckered tighter. He and Widget both started to float, along with some trash that the previous owner had left behind.

“Woo! Let’s do that again!” Widget giggled and cheered.

“Maybe not right now, kiddo,” Emmie called over the comm. She sounded like Rake felt.