My Vacation On the Exotic Shores of a Black Hole - Part 22

_{This is a continuation of my freewrite story series "My Vacation On the Exotic Shores of a Black Hole".}

_{To read the previous installments of this series, you can click the corresponding link below.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10,
Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20,
Part 21}

"Captain, Christov's ship is about to come into firing range."

Now was the time. This was it. I was about to be responsible for the murder of the crew of two ships.

"Julia, open up communications with the captain of the main pirate ship."

It took a few seconds before the communication channel was established. Still, the captain must have been sitting there, ready, for it to have been established so quickly.

"Captain Harrington, have you decided to surrender?"

"On the contrary. I wanted to give you a chance to surrender before I destroyed you."

"HA! Why would I surrender? My victory is almost guaranteed. Your ship has been taking a beating this entire time you've been fleeing from my assault. You think the little ship on my tail will really help you overcome me?"

"No. But you aren't aware of all the cards on the table. You will die today unless you surrender right now."

"I'm prepared to die. I'm prepared to die every day. I didn't go into this career light-heartedly. I am well aware that one day I will likely meet my death at the hands of a captain defending from my assault. But that day is not today. You have no chance. If you don't give up now, it is you who will die."

"You're wrong. I don't wish you ill. You're just doing your job. I don't know how you got into this, but clearly, you aren't some bloodthirsty murderous bastard trying to destroy me and my ship. Just go. This payday isn't worth your life."

"Yeah, you're right. They aren't paying me nearly enough. The damage to my ship is already more extensive than the pay from this job...but I can always charge him extra for that. The main issue is that I can't just walk away. I accepted the money and the job. I have to complete it. It's a matter of honor."

"Well, your honor is about to be your undoing. I wish you luck in the afterlife. May you find the peace in death that you haven't been able to find in life."

"Heh. May you rest easy as well, Captain Harrington."

_{Image by JAKO5D CC0 Creative Commons (source)}

The connection with the pirate ship closed and I was left in silence. Well, the sound of the classical music was still playing, and even went back up in volume after the call ended, but it still felt so quiet. Deathly quiet. I was about to be responsible for all of their deaths.

"Julia. Is it possible for you to maybe collide the support ship with the main pirate ship with a minimal chance of casualties?"

"Of course captain."

"Would you be able to disable them without destroying them and still minimize casualties?"

"That may prove to be a bit more difficult, captain."

"Can you just run the ship into him and damage it as much as possible without destroying them? I don't want to kill them all if possible."

"I believe I should be able to damage them enough to force them to surrender without killing too many members of their crew, but I don't think it's realistic to expect there not to be any casualties. It's not possible to smash two ships together and cause any real damage without killing anyone, captain."

"AHHHGH!!! I know. Fuck it. Do it. Just try to do your best. I want you to try to minimize the casualties if you can, and focus our fire on the second supporting ship, to take it out of the picture. I don't want you to destroy them, just take out their guns or engines, whichever is easier. And bring the pirate back up on the wire."

The communications channel opened back up after a few seconds. "Captain Harrington, what is it now?"

"Last chance. I'm serious. Surrender."

"Or what? You're going to fire more useless lasers at my hull? Nothing you have can do any significant damage to my ship."

"You're wrong. I can fire my torpedo at you."

"Torpedo? Your ship isn't equipped with any torpedos."

"Well...not exactly... I do have one though."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Ehh... Julia, do you suppose we could fire a warning shot? Or would it give away our hand soon enough that they could turn it against us?"

"I don't believe they could recover their control even if they had quite a bit of time on their hands. They haven't even discovered me in their systems, because I have kept communications to a minimum."

"What are you talking about?"

"Okay, fire a warning shot. But make it hurt a little."

"Yes, captain."

"You haven't..." The pirate ship shook with the force of the blast of its support ship's laser cannons. "What the hell! Did my support ship just fire on me? Why is my support ship firing on me?"

"I really didn't think you were this dense. We have control. Now surrender, before it's too late."

"Even if you have control of one of my support ships, you don't have enough firepower to take me out. Even with all three ships, you'll still likely die in this battle."

"Well, that's true. If I were using them for their laser cannons. But I can do something far worse. Don't make me do it." I could see recognition start to dawn on his face. "I'm sure by now you've probably noticed that your support ship has been moving closer and closer to you. Problem is, even if you surrender now, if by some miracle you wrestle control away from me and my ship, you could easily come right after me, and destroy my ship. By that time I would have lost my advantage. I have no choice. I have to destroy you."

"Open communications with Captain Stevens! Ask him WHAT THE FUCK he is doing! Tell him to wrestle back control of his ship or I'll destroy him myself."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry it had to come to this."

Captain Jacobson's ship had come into range by this time, and we were firing together on the second support ship, along with the support ship that we had under our control. It would soon be blocked by the main ship though, and then they would both be out of commission.

"You can't do this, Captain. You'll be killing us all."

"I don't want to. I gave you so many chances to walk away. You didn't want to. You just wanted your payday. You wanted to complete your job. Well, I wanted to complete my job too. I just was a bit more capable than you. Or should I say my AI is."

"Stop this! We surrender! Don't do this!"

"Were you not listening? What's to stop you from trying to get control back of your support ship and coming after us? Or even destroying it and coming after us?"

"We'll purge our fuel tanks! Just don't do this!"

"Okay, do it."

"Do it! Now! Purge everything! And tell the support ships to do the same!"

I could see them all panicking on the monitor, running around in the background. "The support ships are refusing to purge their fuel. They're saying they'll just end up being dead in the water and eventually arrested."

"Did you fucking tell them what's at stake? We're going to fucking die!"

"Captain Stevens has agreed, but Captain Johnson is still refusing."

"Well, tell that little dick Johnson mother fucker to fucking dump his fuel, or I'll fucking destroy him myself!"

After a few seconds, the communications officer got back to him, "He's agreed. He's purging his fuel now. Captain Stevens can't get control of his ship enough to actually purge the fuel though."

"Oh, that's my bad. Julia, once their fuel has finished draining, stop the ship from smashing into the other, and dump it's fuel. And for the sake of the gods, stop firing. We don't wanna accidentally blow us all up."

"It's been nice battling with you, Captain Harrington. I hope you never again cross my path."

"Why, are you going to make some grand threat that you're going to kill me if I do?"

"Fuck no. I just don't wanna fucking die. I have a feeling that you're going to be even harder to beat in the future. I wish you all the luck. My employer isn't one to be trifled with. I hope he doesn't decide to take this any farther than today."

"Goodbye Captain. Try to keep from killing anyone else in the future. You're in a dangerous business. Maybe you should consider switching to smuggling, or retiring altogether."

"Heh. Maybe I'll do that. I don't quite have enough to retire just yet, but a few years of smuggling might be a bit less stressful. Not nearly as fun though."

"Heh. Well, don't get yourself killed while having your fun. By the way, I don't think I got your name."

"Captain Harlow. I hope you don't have any reason to need to know it in the future. Goodbye captain Harrington."

The communications closed and I was back to the silence and the classical music. "Well, that worked out far better than I could have hoped. We aren't mass murders yet, Julia. Raise communications with Cristov."

Christov's now familiar face came up on the display. "Captain Harrington. That went far better than I ever could have hoped. I don't think my ship has barely even a scratch on her, and we're both alive, and the pirate dumped their fuel."

"Yes, we are, and they did. I couldn't have imagined this going so well either. I'm afraid I have more pirates for you to take care of though. You'll have to take them into custody."

"Well, not me, but I'll look over them until a more capable ship can get here to haul them away. Safe journey, Captain. I think you might have gotten me a promotion today. Not what I was expecting. When I went off to help you, I thought I was going to get reamed by my bosses. And you've also earned yourself quite a big payday! I'm not sure quite sure how much all the pirates you caught are worth, but I'm sure quite a number of them have prices on their heads. I'll have the payment forwarded to you after they are processed."

"Thank you, Cristov. I hope the rest of my journey home is uneventful."

I shut down the communications with Cristov and pressed my head into the pillow behind my head in the captain's chair, closing my eyes. I sighed. Today was far to much. I was exhausted. The next thing I knew, Julia was waking me up, telling me that we had just docked at the space station.

_{Well that was...I don't even know. I hope you liked it. It wasn't what I expected to happen...but that sometimes happens in stories. I simply felt like the character of Jack Harrington, even if he was trying to protect his own life, couldn't simply kill a bunch of people, if he had any choice in the matter. We're all capable of such things, whether we want to believe it or not, but that doesn't mean we won't try to find an alternate solution if one is available to us.}