Daniel Tovbis is awake.

So I've written and submitted a short story for the CBC Literary Awards Scholarship. Give it a read.
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Awake.

            A knocking at the door.

Stefan awoke, but did not stir.

Another set of knocks.

Groggily, sluggishly, he sat up in his bed, his muscles stiff and his body aching. He examined his surroundings. The room was dark and unlit: the light was off and the blinds were drawn across the sole window to his right, betraying nothing of the outdoors. He was in his striped pyjamas, his slippers at the foot of his bed. The television stood in the corner, and its remote lay on the night-table beside the bed. Stefan took the remote and turned on the TV. Static greeted him, the white noise filling the room. Shutting it off, he wondered what day it was. He got up off his bed and slipped into his slippers. He walked over to the window and pulled open the blinds.

The knocking returned, now louder.

            A snow storm raged, obscuring everything outside. If he listened closely, he could hear the winds, constant companions to the storm. He was cold. His blanket, thick and woollen, had provided him some comfortable respite but now that he was up and about it was a different story. He shuffled over to his closet and took out his woollen bathrobe. He had to get to the kitchen.

            Stumbling out of his bedroom, he came into the main room of the apartment. It was likewise dark, the blowing of the wind always in the background. The room was simple, the green walls adorned with one or two paintings, a nice rug covering the floor. Wasting no time, Stefan stumbled on through to the kitchen. Hanging above the small pine table was a calendar, with the dates crossed out to-

            October 29^th. Stefan stared at the date, then glanced out the kitchen into the main room. All he could see through his apartment’s main window was an immensity of blowing snow. How could it be October the 29^th?  October 29^th was – of course. He slapped himself for his stupidity. October 29^th was the day he, and everyone else, fell asleep. Obviously he could not update his calendar if he was asleep. And then he understood that he shouldn’t be awake.

Four sharp knocks.

            Stefan, noticing the insistent knocking for the first time, jerked towards the door to his apartment. Someone was standing on the other side of the door. Someone else was awake when they should not be. But who? On the surface of a planet that was now covered by an immeasurably vast blanket of ice and snow, who would be awake? Why was he awake? Stefan stared at the door, frozen like the world outside of his apartment. It would stay frozen until spring came and the storm left, but now it was inhospitable. He and every single human on the planet should be asleep. But he and one other soul were not.

            To be awake when eight billion others were asleep! And this was only the humans. Was a single body other than him and the stranger outside his apartment walking today? Now that he thought about it, it was possible. Although he had never been awake from October to March for the past fifteen years, he was awake now, and so, he reasoned, there could in fact be more than two awake on this day.

A set of four knocks.

            His attention was drawn back to the knocking: Back to the question of the identity of the person behind the inch or so of wood of Stefan’s apartment door. Stefan sat down on the single leather couch that adorned his main room. Questions, like so many buzzing bees, racketed through the inside of his head. Was this night-time (or was it day-time? With the storm, you could never really tell) visitor a friend of Stefan’s? Awoken by some mysterious means had he come to visit? To be honest, Stefan hadn’t many friends, and the ones that he had did not live in the building. It would be suicide to venture outside at this time of year as the cataclysmic storm raged. Not a friend, then.

            It would have to be someone who lived in his building. But what had awakened them? Had they, somewhere, stashed away one of the old programmable alarm clocks? Owning such devices was a severe felony, especially during the winter. Although he was not certain, Stefan thought that even being awake in the winter months was violating some obscure law. But perhaps that was only in the totalitarian countries. But then again, if one knew that all others were asleep, one could move about in the winter months with no fear whatsoever, as nobody else would know. So that was a possibility.

            The final option was a government agent. A police officer or such like coming in to see if anyone was violating the laws that may or may not exist. But during the storm, all communications were useless and it was impossible to travel out of doors. Stefan’s apartment was small – barely fifteen floors, and as far as he knew no policemen or women lived in it, and besides, they could have no contact with the station. Unless it was all some grand conspiracy by a global shadow government to be able to conduct nefarious experiments while humanity slumbered. But those theories were mostly likened to crackpots and revolutionaries, whom were mostly frowned upon in modern society. But the nagging thought was always in people’s heads.

            Four knocks.

            Once again Stefan looked at the door. All the previous questions at once expunged themselves from his mind leaving only one: should he or should he not open the door? He could just ignore the knocking, slip back under his comfortable covers, and sleep for however much time was left until March. The knocking would stop eventually and he’d be peaceful and happy in his warm bed. This option seemed all the more attractive as Stefan realized it was quite cold in his main room, even in his woollen robe and slippers. He got up off the couch.

            Bang Bang Bang Bang.

            Surprised at the sudden insistence of the knocking, Stefan’s eyes were fixed on the door. Beside himself, he began to move towards it. Opening that door would open up a new world, and would answer so many questions, all the while opening new ones. If he opened the door, he would be a new man.

            Bang Bang Bang Bang

            But again, it seemed to him that opening the door would break some basic law of nature, as both he and his visitor were awake at a time when so many others were asleep.

            Bang Bang Bang Bang

            Stefan stumbled and fell to his knees, knocking over a table. The vase standing on top of it toppled and shattered with a great and sudden noise. Weakly, he lifted his head towards the door and noticed the doorknob slowly turning.

            The door to Stefan’s eighth floor apartment blew open with the force of a gale, winds blowing at insane speeds and with great cacophony. A flurry of snow followed and Stefan gripped the rug to hold on. The pieces of the vase were sent flying across the room. Struggling against the assault of the winds, Stefan looked up at the doorway.

            A man stood in the doorway, clad in a thick parka and winter boots. All around him shone a brilliant light through which particles of snow danced, as if he was an angel come to bring salvation. The visitor was looking straight above Stefan such that his face was hidden by the edge of his hood. Stefan stared upwards in fear and admiration.

            The man’s head turned downwards as time seemed to freeze. The fluffs of snow hung lamely in the glow of the doorway. The sound of the wind died and Stefan’s heartbeat slowed. He laid on the ground and waited. The visitor faced him. A dazzling light emanated from under his hood. He extended his arm to Stefan. Stefan shut his eyes, and opened them.

            The apartment was spotless and silent, the door firmly closed. The broken pieces of the vase lay beside Stefan where they had fallen before. Stefan allowed his breathing to slow down and collected himself. He stood up and walked into his bedroom. Dropping his slippers and robe, he crawled underneath his blanket and buried himself under it.

            Stefan slept.

           

Breathing

Breathing inside a gas mask is not as comfortable or as easy as it looks.

I wish I could write stuff about the meaning of life and love

But it would all be pseudo-"deep" bullshit, so I won't.

I make poost

Untitled: Episode 2 Part 1

Sup fellas, and welcome to an untitled science fiction story: Episode 3, Part I. Enjoy!
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PREVIOUSLY:
Jay, a scavenger operating outside the boundaries of the law, scavenges a dead ship belonging to the Wheel faction, a faction directly in opposition to the Deep Space Confederacy, the controllers of the majority of deep space. The Wheel under Admiral Landover show up and fire upon Jay's space wasp, knowing he has stolen a piece of their highly secretive technology. The DSC under Stefan Sonett appear shortly after, and, thinking the Wheel are attacking them, fire back. A battle ensues that the DSC loses, even though Sonett manages to destroy Landover's battlecruiser, the EXPULSION. In the confusion, Jay manages to escape the system to (relative) safety.
--
Episode 3: Tensions Part I

Retale – the closest inhabited planet to Carnegia. A quick glance at the map and one will see that Retale is nearly 90% water, and has only three main continents. While the planet is officially a part of the Deep Space Confederacy, a sprawling entity such as the DSC could not possibly govern every world directly from the office of the President, and so Retale is administered by the planetary governor Chadwick Breton, whose offices are based in the lakeside city of Gibson. South Retale is, de jure, also governed by Breton, but de facto the southern continent lies under the control of magistrate Paulas Atter. The third continent is in the icy north, and controlled directly by the DSC, housing mostly research facilities.

Retale is a temperate planet, averaging 22°C year round. Its atmosphere is composed of mostly argon and oxygen, with trace amounts of other gases. Days on Retale are long ; nearly fifty five hours, but the residents make do with mid-day naps. The year on the planet is 160 days long, with an extra day added every 8 years to make up for the slight inaccuracies that accumulate over time. The majority of the planet’s ten billion people live in the densely populated north, but a strong number do man the many farms and factories found to the south of the planet.

It was in a small Gibson tavern that Jay sat, sharing a drink with a friend on a cool spring day.

“After the arrival of VALKYRIE and HESPERIDES, action continued for approx 16. Minutes” Read DSC Marine Weston Kerchow. “PRETORIA scored one MAC hit on EXPULSION, after which intercepted communications reported EXPULSION calling for backup. PRETORIA did likewise, requesting capital ship DSCS-JUPITER. PRETORIA managed to avoid MAC attack from EXPULSION, which struck the HESPERIDES in upper rear missile bay.”

Jay listened with interest as Weston read the after action report. He appreciated Weston a great deal. As a DSC Corporal, Weston risked a lot by copying these after action reports and sending them over to Jay. As someone who did not always operate within the boundaries of the law, knowing what the DSC was up to was extremely valuable to Jay.

“HESPERIDES combusted half an hour following the hit, but most crew had evacuated by that time. Three Wheel Battlecruisers of unknown designation arrived shortly following explosion. Fire broke out in PRETORIA gun bay six after hit by wheel bomber, but was put out quickly. Capital ship DSCS-JUPITER warped in at 0.600 hours standard time, forty minutes after call had been made. At that time PRETORIA hit EXPULSION again, ripping through diagonal from hangar bay to upper AA cannon bay. Follow up hits from VALKYRIE separated EXPULSION into two halves, bringing it out of action.”

Jay was still nervous, however. He had noticed plenty of DSC peacekeepers on the streets of Gibson as he was making his way to the tavern. He had heard whispers of unrest brewing between the north and the south over the governance of chains of islands in between the two continents. The north claimed that, technically, all of the south was under their jurisdiction while the south argued that they should have sole authority over the archipelago. All of this didn’t bother Jay much, as he tended to shy away from politics.

“JUPITER fired upon remaining Battlecruisers, but shots were infective. The cruisers seemed to retreat without reason, but became clear when Wheel Dreadnought FISSION warped in above JUPITER, PRETORIA, and VALKYRIE. VALKYRIE fell back to safer firing distance as PRETORIA and JUPITER repositioned. FISSION scored missile hits on PRETORIA bringing all upper MAC guns out of service. At this time, DSCS – OTTAWA arrived after distress call from HESPERIDES. Unfortunately, direct beam strike followed by MAC hit from FISSION brought OTTAWA out of action nearly immediately after arrival. Very few survivors. JUPITER, PRETORIA, and VALKYRIE warped out of the system at 0.730, standard time.”

Weston looked up from the AAR, dropping the pamphlet on the desk. His neat cut brown hair and well trimmed chin stood out in sharp contrast with Jay’s shaggy forehead length hair and short boxed beard. While Weston was dressed in standard off duty clothes (neatly iron and freshly cleaned jeans and t-shirt), Jay was wearing ages old faded jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt that looked quite worse for the wear. These two men were old friends from before either of them took up their current professions.

“That’s that, Jay.” Weston said. “That’s the shit you caused.”

“I didn’t cause anything, man.” Jay replied. “I just came in there and scavenged a dead ship.”

“Yeah, a dead Wheel ship, you dumbass! Don’t you know you don’t mess with those guys? Whatever you took from there, they’re going to want back, and what’s worse, the Confederates are going to want it even more!”

Jay was about to reply when a voice from further in the tavern shushed them.

“Shut it up over there!” It yelled. “Some shit’s going down on the TV!”

Jay and Weston looked over at the viewscreen. A live feed, proclaiming itself to be from the border with South Retale, showed civilian mobs smashing themselves against rows of DSC police. A bar underneath the video read “The Caroe islands – whose are they?” Strangely enough, Jay watched the scene with interest. He could see rows upon rows of the DSC, along with fluttering DSC flags and hovering DSC helicopters. Jay was nervous. Weston’s words rang in his head. There were plenty of DSC on this planet, and they sure as hell would be interested in the battery. To tell the truth, Retale had seen its fair share of unrest in the past and had never gotten such a strong response from the DSC. He wondered if they were looking for a tall white male piloting a bunker-class fighter.

“I’m getting out of here.” He said to Weston, standing up abruptly. Weston raised his eyebrows.

“Hey, I know you’re feeling a bit nervous, but this is space, here.” He said. “They probably won’t send the assassins after you for a few months, at least. Besides, you just got here, and we like, never see each other.”

“No,  Weston, I gotta go.” Jay said. “At least I have to get out of Gibson. Have you seen the amount of DSC around here? It’s crazy. We can meet up later on another part of the planet. ‘Till when are you on leave?”

“I’ve got another month.” Weston shrugged. Although disappointed in Jay’s sudden departure, Weston had come to accept the outlaw lifestyle of his schoolfriend. Different strokes for different folks.

“Alright, I’ll give you a call.” Jay strapped on his goggles and walked out the door, leaving Weston with two half drunk bottles of beer, an after action report, and an empty bowl of peanuts. A few seconds later, a colonel of the Deep Space Confederacy walked through the door of the 17^th Street bar and tavern.

---

DSC Colonel Garrett Scott eyed every single man and woman sitting in the tavern. The two DSC marines behind him flanked him closely, hugging their rifles carefully. Eyeing the patrons once more, he let his hands fall – his left one by his holster, and his right one by his sword grip.

“Does anyone here pilot a bunker-class fighter?” He spoke out, his voice booming in the small space. No one spoke.

He blinked and nodded.

“Alright.” He said, sitting down at an empty table. His guards moved to stand in front of him. “Everybody get out your licenses. We don’t have all day.”

A short while later the inspection had been concluded, and even though he had not found any pilots of bunker-class fighters, he did find one patron without any sort of papers at all who was promptly sent away to the local constabulary. His business thusly concluded, he and his escorts left the 17^th Street bar and tavern. As the one responsible for finding the mysterious scavenger at Carnegia, he was not a stupid man. He knew that a bunker class fighter traveling at 300,000 km/s could only go so far before needing to refuel, and Retale was the only planet close enough with the appropriate facilities. He had immediately ordered a mobilization of DSC military in the area, with the unrest between North and South proving to be a good excuse to subject all civilian traffic entering and leaving the planet to rigorous searching. Even so, scraping an entire planet to find one man was not an easy task, and he had hundreds of teams just like his looking through piles of papers and tons of locations to find the pilot of one bunker-class fighter. And this was only in the north.

Either way, his next stop was the Gibson civilian spaceport, one of the few civilian spaceports on Retale. If the scavenger was on the planet, he would have to have landed there.

---

Jay’s apartment was more reminiscent of a student’s dorm room than an adult’s place of living. Clothing covered the floor and the dishes had not been washed in at least a week. Jay, understandably, did not spend much time here, as his work often required him to sleep in the Space Wasp for a good couple of days. Walking into the kitchen, he sat down, studying the piece of Wheel tech on his table. What he had was extremely valuable, and Jay knew it. Most Wheel technology – their rifles, their tools, and the most sensitive parts of their battleships usually disintegrated into fine powder after being taken away from their users. But with no power source to disintegrate it, the battery he had was fully intact and presumably still functional. Everyone : smugglers, Wheel, even the DSC would pay him good money to take it off his hands. But it was infinitely more likely that they’d kill him for it instead. In a city like Gibson, Jay knew he wasn’t safe. The Space Wasp, stored in a friendly farmer’s shed a hundred kilometres away could not keep hidden forever.

In a flash, Jay knew what he had to do. Gathering up his things and stuffing the battery into a backpack, he made his way out of his apartment and found a taxi. The DSC would definitely have the planet surrounded by now, so he’d have to go somewhere too sensitive for them to bring an army now. Jay would have to go south.

Untitled: Episode 1 part 3

!!! THIS IS OUTDATED !!!
!!! SEE THIS POST FOR MORE DETAILS !!!
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Episode 1: Part 3: The  Action at Carnegia

“Sonett, this is Admiral Landover of the Wheel fleet. We do not have any intention of leaving the system until we have spoken with an ambassador from the DSC. You do not have the authority to force us from the system.”

Alexi Perrobs watched as the admiral ended communications with the Pretoria.

“Bastards.” The Admiral continued. “They think they can waltz around our ships like this. Can’t wait to rip it apart and see what’s inside. They won’t know what the hell they’re looking at.”

The Admiral paced around the bridge of the EXPULSION. Alexi waited for him to say something, or give an order, but he did not. The next voice to raise came over the bridge PA system, from the long range scanning deck near the helm of the EXPULSION.

“Scanner to bridge, scanner to bridge.” Came the crackling voice. Alexi was not familiar with the head scanning officer, as they rarely passed each other in the halls of the EXPULSION. Jana had told Alexi that he (Alexi could not recall his name) was a pleasant fellow, with an intricate knowledge of the harmonica. He made a mental note to meet up with him sometime.

“This is the bridge.” Responded Evan, the internal comms officer. Alexi was responsible for communication in between vessels, while Evan took care of communications inside the ship.

“We’ve finished our scans of the DELIVERANCE. It’s not good.” Continued the voice over the PA.

“What’s the situation?”

“Well, a lot of it we knew already. The shields and engines are totally destroyed, as is the majority of the hull. The asteroids did a huge number on it. Life support has totally failed ; the whole place is decompressed. There’s no vital signs either. Have you guys managed to contact them?”

Evan turned to Alexi. Alexi shook his head.

“No, we got nothing over here.” Evan said.

“Well, that’s that then. We’ve gotten no reports of any escape pods or vital signs on the planet, either, unless they went below the surface. But even then we’d be able to see the crashed pods… unless they dragged those underground as well. Either way there’s no way of telling if they’re down on the planet, and the fact remains that the ship is deserted. Any idea what happened there?”

“No, none. We’ll keep you updated. Anything else?”

“Yeah, there is one thing… The DELIVERANCE is missing its battery. We think it-“

The head scanning officer was cut off by the Admiral, who had barged over to Evan’s station as soon as he had heard the battery being mentioned.

“The battery.” He stated. “Where is it?”

“Well, it’s not on the ship.” Answered the officer. “We thought it was destroyed by an asteroid, but…”

“That’s impossible. The battery is much too small a target for an asteroid.”

“With all due respect, there are a lot of asteroids in that belt.”

“No! No! No!” The Admiral raged, throwing his hands up into the air. He spun to Jana.

“Jana! Where is that scavenger vessel?”

Jana, surprised at the Admiral’s outburst, rapidly examined the screen in front of her.

“It’s still hiding in the belt, sir.”

“Keep firing at it! I don’t care about the Confederates, we can deal with them after. This ship must not leave the system. Evan, scramble the fighters, scramble everything!”

Evan opened up a communications channel to all stations on the EXPULSION, doing exactly as the admiral ordered.

---

Sonnett saw an attack coming, and responded in kind. He did not have time to see where the missiles were aimed or where the Wheel fighters were flying. He made a choice, a fairly rational one, based on the situation. In fact, despite everything that was to happen, he would receive a medal from the DSC for what he did during the action at Carnegia.

“Engines and shields to full. Move into position for MAC attack.”

He spoke the orders calmly and without emotion. A true captain and man of culture should never act excited or show nervousness (the former was permitted, within reason, in the company of a lady). The Pretoria’s engines kicked in and the shields whined to life. All across the vessel, men ran to their stations. To load missiles, to man stations. As a Battlecruiser, the Pretoria did not have any fighters of its own to scramble, as most of its interior was needed for its magnetic accelerator cannon. Two shots, two good shots were all he needed. Unlike the shields on DSC vessels, Wheel vessels had localized shields – the shield would activate instantly in a very specific location as soon as a projectile came within range. This was very efficient in terms of energy consumption, as the entire shield did not need to be activated unless the situation was extremely dire. It was, however, a great weakness. If the Pretoria got in two well placed shots, one after the other, the localized shield would be too weak to stop the second magnetically accelerated giant hunk of metal from piercing the EXPULSION.

As the first missiles left the tubes of the Pretoria, Sonnet saw the EXPULSION rotating to meet them, its fighters changing their destinations. He turned from the viewscreen, and ordered a call for the missile frigates DSCS-VALKYRIE and DSCS-HESPERIDES.

---

The world around Jay exploded in a brilliant flash of light and fire. The Space Wasp was pelted with stone as the missiles exploded around him once more. Dozens of miles away, he could see tiny shapes moving towards him, becoming larger and larger. Regaining composure, he checked the systems of the wasp. To his mild bemusement, he discovered that his only defense, the Wasp’s taped on beam cannon, had been destroyed by a sizable rock. He wondered aloud how he was supposed to defeat the Wheel battleship now that his secret weapon was gone.

But now was no time for self-loathing humour. He locked his red goggles back over his eyes and restarted his engines. Dodging asteroids, he had only a few seconds to glance out at the events transpiring outside the asteroid belt. While the missiles continued to fly towards him, his radar did show that the Wheel fighters had changed course. Eventually, the battleship began to change orientation too, with the missiles stopping shortly after. Even through the airless void of space, he heard explosions and the whines of the engines of massive ships. He once again paused at the edge of the asteroid belt, and drifted slowly outwards.

Chaos. The Battlecruiser had been joined by two missile frigates, who kept their distance while the cruiser absorbed most of the fire. The frigates were releasing salvo after salvo at the EXPULSION, who responded with equal or even greater firepower. Neither vessel was in the correct position to fire their MACs, but Jay guessed the battle would end fairly quickly once one of them did. In his awe, he continued to drift outwards from the asteroid belt as the battle continued. Streaks of rocket fuel and the bright greens of lasers filled the space in between the opposing sides. He could not see them, but he knew smaller magnetically accelerated projectiles were also flying between the two vessels.

Stunned by the glamour of the Space Opera unfolding in front of him, Jay did not notice the Wheel fighter beelining towards him. It was by pure luck that he managed to glance at his radar screen and spot the glowing green triangle moving towards him. Sticking the engines into full reverse, he smashed back through the asteroid belt.The Space Wasps' bulk absorbed most of the rocks, the rest being vaporized in its engines. After two seconds of reversing, the Wasp came to a halt with a crash, its rear having met a much larger asteroid. The impact knocked out the cabin light, leaving Jay illuminated by the red glow of the emergency lighting. The Wheel fighter had meanwhile disengaged, its much lighter frame not as suited to asteroid belt maneouvering.

Quite suddenly, a shockwave travelled across the battlefield as the Pretoria let loose thousands of tons of accelerated metal. The warhead travelled straight towards the EXPULSION and annihilated itself on its shields, which flickered on a split second before impact.As the fire from the explosion spread, the shields of the EXPULSION activated as they were needed, leaving the vessel itself unharmed. Space hung silent for an infinitesimal place in time. 

Jay, ever the opportunist, took the chance and gunned his engines in the direction of the Pretoria. As the battle started up once more around him, he  sped beneath the massive hull of the Deep Space Confederacy Battlecruiser, and off into space, accelerating to nearly 300,000 km per second, the battery of the DELIVERANCE stowed safely in his trunk.

---

            An hour later and Five hundred kilometers away, Alexi Perrobs was sucked into the void as a second MAC round from the Pretoria ripped through the EXPULSION. He was carrying a message to the lower decks when the projectile hit, dragging him and his armed escorts out into the space around Carnegia.

Untitled: Episode 1 part 2

THIS IS OUTDATED! SEE THIS POST FOR MORE INFO!
--
Episode 2: Prelude to the Action at Carnegia

                The Wheel ship EXPULSION finished its slow exit from the fourth dimension. The rip in space healed behind it and it floated, basking in the light of the distant star. A second later, every view screen on the giant battleship threw itself open, letting in whatever little light there was “outside”. On the bridge of the EXPULSION, deep inside the ship, Comms Officer Alexi Perrobs spun around in his chair, facing the commander of the ship, who was intently watching a live feed of the situation around the EXPULSION.

                “Admiral?” Said Alexi. The Admiral grunted.

                “We’ve arrived at Carnegia.” He continued.

                The Admiral turned his head, and gave a quick nod. He was an old man, the last of his graying hair hidden beneath his cap. He had not shaved for several days.  Alexi turned back to the communications panel. The only ship in range was the DELIVERANCE, but, knowing its situation, Alexi didn’t contact it.

                “Contact the Deliverance.” The captain muttered. Alexi briefly turned, shrugged, and turned back.

                He opened a channel with the DELIVERANCE.

                “Deliverance, this is the Expulsion. We’ve arrived as part of a search and rescue mission as per order R16. Please respond.” Alexi listened for a response, and got only static and the sound of groaning metal. He whirled back to the captain.

                “Should I try again, Sir?”

                “Do it.”

                Alexi repeated the transmission twice, but he had never really expected an answer. No ship, not even a Wheel battleship, could survive being trapped in orbit inside of an asteroid belt. He was about to spin around to the Admiral for a third time when the radar observation officer, a pleasant woman named Jana, spoke up.

                “Admiral, there’s another ship here. A one man vessel, antiquated. Looks like a scavenger or a merc.”

                The Admiral walked over to Jana, looking over her soldier. The rest of the officers on the bridge looked on tersely. Alexi could not see what the Admiral saw, but he could see that he was not happy with it.

                “Alexi.” The Admiral said, “Contact the ship. Tell whoever’s there to surrender to us immediately.”

                Alexi shrugged and spun back around in his chair. Pressing a few buttons, he opened up communications with the unknown vessel.

                “Attention scavenger!” He transmitted, “This is the EXPULSION.  Power down your shields and weapons and stay where you are. Scouts will come to retrieve you shortly.” He waited for a response.

                “Admiral.” Jana said, after a few moments of silence. “The scavenger is moving back into the asteroid belt.”

                The Admiral sighed a heavy sigh. He took his off his captain’s cap and scratched the back of his head (once full and flowing, now only accommodating short gray hair) with his black-gloved hand. He pinched the bridge of his nose with the other hand as he bowed his head. After a second in thought, he raised his head once more.

                “Destroy it. I don’t want to deal with this right now.”

                Shrugging, Alexi opened communications with the fire control wing.

---

                The first missiles impacted the rocks around him just as Jay sped back inside the asteroid belt. Once he was there, however, he found it necessary to slow down to avoid being ripped to shreds. While secretly proud of how highly the Wheel had thought of him, he was a little bit ashamed to know that the Space Wasp had no shields to speak of. Any dent made in its hull was one that Jay would have to get out with a hammer, pay to get fixed, or, the most likely option, leave it as it is. He had half a mind to return to the DELIVERANCE and hide, but he knew someone would find him there eventually. He had another half a mind to land on the planet, but it wouldn’t be that hard to find one man on the surface on an uninhabited world (given the sensors that the EXPULSION undoubtedly carried). For now, he had to evade and hope to get a lucky break.

                The next salvo of missiles penetrated deeper into the field, blowing chunks out of rocks and peppering the hull of the Space Wasp with a hail of pellets. Jay gunned it, hoping to make it to the other side of the planet. There, at least, he would have a minute or two to plan out a strategy while the much larger Wheel battleship repositioned itself.

                The third salvo hit a rather large asteroid floating closest to Jay. The shockwave sent the Wasp barrel-rolling towards the planet, luckily moving itself out of the path of a blasted off meteorite. More pebbles barraged the Wasp’s hull. A particularly heavy stone struck the Wasp’s side viewscreen, creating a snaking crack. Jay righted the Wasp, only to notice he was slowing down and losing altitude. He pushed the throttle higher and gunned the Bunker-class fighter back into the asteroid belt, not wanted to become a meteorite himself in the atmosphere of Carnegia.  As he awaited a fourth salvo, he noticed another rip and tear opening in space; Two hundred kilometers away from the last one and slightly smaller. Jay was elated. Could this be who he thought it was?

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                The DSCS-Pretoria, a medium sized Faster-than-light Battlecruiser made its way out of the fourth dimension and into the space surrounding Carnegia.  Directly to its front floated the planet itself, and to its flank floated the Wheel ship EXPULSION. At the head of the Pretoria stood Captain Stefan Sonett, known to his friends as “The Poet”. While never having read a word of Shakespeare (he preferred more modern writers), he liked the nickname as he thought himself a man of great culture. His uniform was always sparkling white, the gold paint on his sashes always crisp. He abhorred smoking and beards, so he was missing those, but altogether he believed he cast quite an imposing image.

                From the wide view screen at the head of the Pretoria, he observed the EXPULSION closely. Its attentions were clearly not on the Deep Space Confederacy Battlecruiser, but he was still nervous. For one, the EXPULSION was a full-on battleship, and could easily take on the Pretoria. The magnetically accelerated projectiles the EXPULSION could fire were much, much larger than what the Pretoria could come to bear. Maybe the first hit could be absorbed by the shields, but if they were hit a second time, the battlecruiser would be sheared in half. Stefan had a few missile frigates in close contact in case hostilities broke out, but he did not wish to risk his vessel in any situation. But if the going got really dire, the DSCS-Jupiter, a massive Dreadnought, was docked nearby and could theoretically be called over. Stefan hoped it would not come to that.

                “Officer Reynolds!” He shouted, addressing his communications officer. “Open a channel with that Wheel ship. Find out what’s up.” He sat down into the captain’s seat, observing the EXPULSION intently. Reynolds did as he was asked.

                “Attention Wheel vessel, this is the Deep Space Confederacy Battlecruiser Pretoria. You are in DSC space, and nearby long range sensors have detected fire in this area. State your intent.”

                The reply came promptly from the Wheel comms officer.

                “Pretoria, this is Expulsion. We have reason to believe a wanted smuggler is operating in this area. We are apprehending him as we see fit.”

                Reynolds turned to the Stefan, looking for words. The Captain motioned to put him through to the EXPULSION.

                “EXPULSION, this is Captain Sonett of the Pretoria. If there is a smuggler in this area, then he is under our jurisdiction, not yours. You must leave the system immediately.”

                A crackle was heard as an image came through from the EXPULSION: The Captain of the vessel; an old, wizened man, was pictured on the Pretoria’s bridge monitor. But he was not a captain – Stefan saw that he wore the uniform of an admiral.

                “Sonett, this is Admiral Landover of the Wheel fleet. We do not have any intention of leaving the system until we have spoken with an ambassador from the DSC. You do not have the authority to force us from the system.”

                Stefan leaned back in his chair. The Wheel Admiral had a point. Stefan could attack the vessel if ordered, and could defend himself if he felt threatened, but could not make the EXPULSION leave. Things had been tense but not hostile between the Wheel and the DSC recently, and Stefan did not want to be responsible for the outbreak of war. In fact, he was just about to call in for an ambassador when a volley of missiles, followed by throngs of Wheel fighters, erupted from the bowels of the Wheel Battleship, and sped out in all directions.