A familiar voice is heard calling out through the crowd, "Erich! Erich!". The captain looks back to see an old friend approaching.
"Erich! You still alive? Last I heard you had three rats on your tail.."
"Hey Daun... You know it'll take more than that to kill me. How's the job?"
"Could be worse, I mean.." Daun raises his arms. "This system isn't exactly "Pirate Central" is it? What are you doing here anyways?"
Erich turns back to a majestic spaceship suspended before them. With its primitive design, it almost stood out from the rest of the ships in the military spacecraft exposition. Erich comes to this planet every year to admire what he thought was the craft that started it all.
"Ah yes, the VRGF-1." Daun starts chuckling to himself.
"What's so funny? Without this ship we wouldn't even be here. How could you not feel-"
"The ship is fake.", Daun whispers into Erich's ear.
Erich recoils back. He looks around him, as if to get confirmation of what he just heard. Everyone around him is busy examining vessels or sipping Caltrinian Bile. He notices a purple-haired girl staring, but she's too far to have heard anything.
"What do you mean fake?"
"Honestly it didn't really surprise me when I received the information. Did you really think the first ship to ever register with the GALTRAUTH would be a military ship?"
Erich calms down and looks pensive.
"That's what I thought", Daun continues. "In fact, the little birdy who told me, also gave me a set of coordinates to the real ship. Now I'd go there myself, but I can't really leave my post.."
Erich's eyes widen.
"Give it to me."
"I dunno maan.."
Erich puts his wrist up and after a couple of keypresses on his captain assistant, a beep is heard on Daun's wrist.
"By the Lord Knorr, you really want this ship don't you? Well I'm convinced. Drinks on me when you come back!"
Daun sends him coordinates to the ship. Erich reads them, then greets his friend before heading out. Almost by reflex he looks back to where that girl was, but only sees an after-image of that purple glow.
"Shame. She looked cute."
It's been almost a week now, but after many days of navigation and more than one pirate encounter, he's nearly at his destination. Carefully penetrating its atmosphere, Erich lands next to what seems like an abandoned old set of hangars.
His dashboard reads :
DESTINATION REACHED.
PLANET ALIAS : EARTH-0.
STATUS : INHABITED.
PLEASE WEAR PROTECTIVE GEAR.
He jumps out of his ship, contemplating his surroundings. The place is full of every kind of craft he could imagine. "Can this thing even fly?", he says to himself as he kicks the wheels of a rectangular shaped craft.
"Let's not waste time.", he opens up the exact coordinates again, the exact location is a couple hundred meters away. Moving around the debris and old ships, he reaches his destination. It's a small garage, of what seems to have been a mechanic. He goes inside, and find a second garage door in the back, but this time closed.
"There's no doubt about it, it's here."
He presses a button next to the door, with no feedback. After a few kicks and punches he finally notices the lock mechanism at the bottom. Shooting the lock out, he kicks the door a few more times before realizing he has to pull it upwards.
He's almost out of breath after seeing what unravels before his eyes once he pulls the garage door up.
There it was, the REAL VRGF-1.
It was more than what he could have ever hoped for. It's as if this device was a century ahead of every other machinery surrounding it, and yet somehow felt like it was right at home. He slowly gets closer, running his hand across its metal. Jumping on its wing, he opens up the hatch almost by accident.
"It still works.." he mutters to himself, as its dashboard lights up from inside.
"Not so fast."
He quickly turns around to see a familiar purple scalp, but this time staring him down with a gun in her hands.
"You.. but.. how did you even-"
"No sudden movements. I'm not going to hurt you, but the ship is mine."
"Who even are you?"
"You can call me Alba."
Erich is enraged but can't make a move. With his arms up, he jumps off the wing. As he raises his head, another familiar figure appears before him.
"Wait.. WHAT?" Elrich yells.
Alba turns around pointing her gun, but this time with another one pointed right back at her.
"Captain? What are you doing here?" says Elrich.
"I'm not your captain anymore, remember? Too bad they don't teach you how to watch your surroundings at the academy."
"AHA!!" Erich swiftly pulls two of his guns, just to have two pointed back at him.
"Aw.. well, it seems to me we have ourselves a Cromian standoff here.."
Time almost stopped in that hangar for a moment. The tension was getting more and more intense, until a bright blue light illuminated the garage. "Look!"
The propulsors were turning on, and Erich turned back just in time to spot a runner's silhouette as his suit was de-cloaking.
"He's trying to take-off!"
Lifting off the ground, the unknown runner scurries out as the three collectively shoot at him.
"Get to your ships! That ship can't fall into the wrong hands!" Dorea may have been discharged, but her voice still carried a charisma worthy of a fleet captain.
Two minutes later, all three ships were exiting Earth-0's atmosphere to chase down the first ship to ever be registered with the Galactic Trade Authority.
Erich was in the lead, and was seeing the ship on his radar. He gains some distance on the ship, out-maneuvering it through an asteroid belt.
But as soon as they come out to open space, the ship starts to get smaller on his viewport.
"Damn it!"
"Should have invested in better thrusters.", he hears Dorea through his comms, as he sees her passing him by.
Dorea slowly starts to gain distance on the number one ship, firmly planning to catch it. Her "Vigilant" was a very well-known vette among runners, and even more so among pirates. She's so focused on her target, she almost misses the dashboard's warning message. Almost.
WARNING : WORMHOLE AHEAD!
"Shit."
She waits to see the VRGF-1 disappear into a faint flash before her, before she steers to starboard, pushing the brakes.
Standing just out of the wormhole's shrinking gravity field, she watches as Erich is coming straight towards the wormhole.
"Geronimooo! O..ooh oohh!!"
Dorea sighs putting her palm to her head.
He had just missed it, the wormhole closing sends his ship off balance and into a rotational frenzy for a few seconds.
"You haven't changed one bit Erich."
"I see you're still a wimp too."
"There could have been pirates on the other end, I couldn't risk--"
"Yeah yeah... Now it's gone."
As they both stand helplessly in space, they see a Scoot approaching from the distance.
Lore by KingZee
