The Siren, Part 2
The Meeting & Awakening
Captain Krats surveyed the council chamber prior to the arrival of the pirate delegates. He chuckled at the irony. Despite all our efforts to fight the system and oppose authority, we still had to have our own authority and rules; our own hierarchy and protocols.
The first few delegates had arrive but more were still to come. He knew that his strongest rival would be last – Captain Nagus Ramsfield. His blood drew cold as he though of the man who killed his son. It will be difficult to share a council chamber meeting with that barbarian.
The process was slow. Each ship had to drop out of jump space just outside the gas giant’s orbit. It made it easy as the gas giant had such a big gravity well. But the travel in-system involved an escort from his team into the asteroid belt. The delegate ships had to shut off all sensors and slave their system to Krats men. That took a lot of trust and negotiation – something pirates were not good at.
Krats called his stronghold the Solid-Star. Over time, he knew his actions would draw attention. He knew the Wolves were on the hunt. He prepared for an attack as best he could but his hopes were the nature of the system, in combination with the size of the asteroid field would obscure his location long enough to fortify it even more.
While building this stronghold, they did discover a few things. Inside the asteroids, some had hewn passage ways as if someone occupied them before. Some where even atmosphere tight.
Also many of the asteroids has a solid core made of some impenetrable ore. His teams could tunnel all around them but could not penetrate the core. Later, with some stolen mining scanners, it was discovered that these cores were perfectly spherical. The scanners, however, could not penetrate inside the sphere and it was assumed they were solid.
An alarm interrupted Krats’ thoughts. “Report!” he said to his bridge security officer.
“Unknown disturbance on level D-12, inner section, near the core. Crew quaters section A-22. Security has been dispatched.”
Chief Krylos knew the procedure and sent the standard compliment. “Double the detail. Send Jenkins’ team. Just in case.” Considering the situation, they could not be too careful.
Captain Krats got a notification on his Ocular device that more delegates had arrived. Just one more. Nagus.
Nagus was accompanied by four large guards, all four of them genetically enhanced giants. Human only by appearance, Nagus’ crew engaged in as much human enhancement that bio-tech could supply. These bio-enhancements had a side effect – made them beasts by nature. Hair trigger tempers and savage anger made them good warriors and even better pirates. They took on the hardest Imperial military shipments. You could not have a Pirate Alliance without their hardware.
Captain Krats met him and his entourage in the hangar with his own entourage. ” Nagus, welcome to the Solid-Star.”
Nagus’ crew and overall culture was inspired by the Terran Norse cultures, so Nagus was wearing layers of fur over his think synth-leather studded armor and a large decorated helm. A large blaster rifle with battle-axe blade for a bayonet was slung over his shoulder.
“I’ll be calling it Hlidskjalf when I take it from you. Ha ha ha…” his laugh belowed through out the hangar.
“Ah, we will see about that. When are serving under me, you will learn to show me a little more respect.” Krats smiled. “In the meantime, we have a meeting to attend. You are the last to arrive. The Council is about to start. Check your weapons at the door.”
Krats stepped out of the council room frustrated. Not only were all the delegates being difficult, but he was being called out by his security chief.
“Cap. We have a situation. I am headed down to D-12 now. Both security teams have not checked it. Further analysis of the disturbance data shows that something has burst in from the inside of the asteroid. Something has come through the core. I thought those were solid!”
“Do we have video down there?” Krats was growing concerned.
“Offline. And we sent mobile robo-sentries and they went offline too.” He paused for a moment. “Just checked the bulkhead doors. It looks like someone was able to contain the breach with the doors. Glad you had those installed.
Could this be the Imps?
“I’ll go down there myself and check it out. I will report back.” Krlos signed off.
Krats had a sinking feeling in his gut. The corporate transports made it easy to build this facility. They’d either abandon equipment because it was too expensive to transport or they would transport it on cheap unguarded robo-transports. It was like they were inviting the pirates to take them. Once Krats had the technology to navigate the field – thanks to Nagus’s crew, in fact – it was a matter of picking the right asteroids and start construction.
Materials were also easy to get. Stolen Synthesizers reconstituted raw material from the asteroids into the various supports, plates and lattice works to make the station. Environmental and engineering were scavenged from transport ships and refitted for station operation.
As it stood, five asteroids had stations on them, strategically placed through out the field. Solid-Star Prime was the first base to be built and during its’ final stages, Alpha and Beta were under construction. Then Gamma and Delta are still under construction and have a minimal crew and act as fueling stations for patrols and hunter ships.
Solid-Star Prime was Krats’ castle and home. It was where he has brought all the local heads of the Pirate Alliance for a meeting to change the power in the sector. It was also where something strange an alien was awakening.