Tramp Wars: The Enemy Read online

  As he watched, an explosion in the just landed ship's smoking hold sent flames out the hole in the hull while knocking the hatch from the cargo hold on the deck above flying out into the open air. Slowly tumbling towered the ground as smoke started pouring from the hatch opening, followed by flames. The hatch hit the pit floor as dust puffed out around the edges just after a loud boom echoed across the port followed by a thud a few seconds later. Mark watched the thickening smoke rising up past the ships row of hull guns as it sat in the unusually large pit far away from most of the other pits, past the port's main perimeter barrier wall and road. He finally noticed several ships sitting around the pit that looked a bit strange but with his focus still mainly on the burning ship he did not think much about them. After all ships were ships.

  He watched the ship continue to burn as fire fighting vehicles swarmed towered it. Then Mark noticed the pirate's tapping collar attached to the side of the upper hold and the hull piercing anchors with cables hanging down out of the hull scattered around the docking collar. The cables were for keeping a docking ship attached and stable against the target ship. Shaking his head in shock, his eyes turned to the increasing number of holes in the cargo holds sending flames reaching up toward the hull guns when he noticed the torpedo launcher just below the row of guns circling the lifeboat deck and the bubble from the torpedo magazine to reload the 6 tube box launcher. The reloading hatch was wide open.

  A large stream of foaming water from the berm next to the ship started pouring into the lower hole after only a few seconds of searching, reducing the amount of flames and smoke belching from it considerably as the foam started filling the hold robbing the fire of oxygen. Mark stared in disbelief as another stream started hitting the side of the ship searching for the next hole up but kept missing it and spraying foam every place but into the hold. It looked like they would have the fires out shortly as soon as the slowly moving stream of foam could find the hole.

  "Godstar. What the hell happened?" Mark had never seen a ship on fire before. Hell he could not remember ever seeing a ship with holes blasted in its side or the tap boarding collar before in real life. Though he had seen enough of them on pirate action movies over the years. The stream of water foam suddenly moved jumping across the hole to stop on the other side then slowly moved back toward the blazing hold opening that had just lost its hatch. The spray bouncing uselessly off the side of the hull. He started to get frustrated at how long it was taking to get the stream into the hole

  Suddenly a massive explosion spread out in slow motion from the fiery upper hatch just as the stream of water finely entered it. A huge fiery donut quickly expanding out to thousand feet around showed that an explosion had ripped the ship in half. The explosion blowing the upper half of the ship: cargo holds, the personnel decks and the bow of the ship up several hundred feet into the air above the lower section still in the pit. The top of the lower hold’s hull flowering out at the top.

  The blast wave rapidly approached then washed over Mark making him reach up to shield his ears as he steadied himself and watched the upper half slowly fall past the still standing lower half of the ship. The falling hulk crashing to the plasti-crete deck of the pit hitting on one corner collapsing the hull down into several of the holds above that were starting to burn. It seemed to hesitate like a huge leaning tower for several seconds and then slowly toppled over onto its side away from the upright lower half and toward the berm.

  Debris and flames seamed to erupt from under the hull and the cargo holds as it hit on its side sending out clouds of smoke sweeping away only to get sucked back into one column above the ship as the super high temperature gasses raced up into the air. The hull section seamed to lay there for a few seconds as the crunching crash of the dying ship hit him making him wince as dust settled and smoke cleared up the column and then explosions and fire quickly engulfed the cargo holds of the toppled crew section rapidly spreading toward the lifeboat locks/magazines, torpedo tubes, hull guns and the dozens of personnel decks toward the bow.

  Though he could not see how anyone could have survived the tumbling upper half of the ship he begged anyway. Hoping they would get out and run to safety.

  The firefighting air vehicles arrived to cluster around, sending streams of foam onto the wreckage as small ant sized orange suited figures and trucks ran from the tunnels in the berm toward the toppled hull section. Black ants started erupting from the hulk running across the pit. "Godstar this is frigging unbelievable." Mark said shocked. In all the star systems they had visited. He had never seen a ship that had been damaged by pirates except the Queen and compared to this the Queen was only bruised. Let alone one that was in the process of destroying itself.

  An explosion emanated from the life boat deck's torpedo magazine blasting a huge hole in the side of the hull. The fireball covering that side of the pit in flames debris and smoke as the plasma charged power cases for the guns continued to explode. Scorching everything including the little orange ants running toward the hulk and the black trying to get away. Knocking the closest firefighting airtrucks on that side of the ship tumbling across the sky with one crashing down to the ground as it continued spewing a stream of foam around in arcs as it rolled across the pit. The problem with the old plasma charged cased weapons being the fact that the cases did not react well to heat or explosions around them.

  Mark stood there watching in shock at the hundreds of ants orange suited and black now laying scattered across the pit unmoving as plasma case explosions continued to wash over them. Then more little ants started running from the forward part of the hulk laying on the ground. Some of them on fire trailing smoke across the pit. Most of them only getting a few feet before collapsing into smoking heaps as the explosions and fire reached for the sky behind them.

  Mark looked away in disbelief. Stepping out from the shadow of the bus toward the burning ship and the middle of the platform. Looking around the port trying to think as the heat from the explosions and fire two miles away washed across his face. Looking around trying to grasp reality again, he noticed a half dozen ships (scattered amongst the 20 or 30 ships close enough to see clearly), had battle damage of some sort or another on them before looking back as another explosion got his attention. It took a few seconds for the smoke to clear leaving now even more half blackened orange and unmoving specks of ants and wreckage littering the pit area. Too many ant like specs to count as Mark stared. Knowing those had been live people only minutes or seconds before. Though an occasional ant still tried to run or stager the gauntlet of flames across the pit only to fall part of the way across and then lay there for seconds or minutes wiggling still trying to crawl to safety.

  He could not believe anyone had survived the toppling crash let alone the explosion only to become human fireballs running across the pit trying to survive. His problems suddenly felt ridiculously mundane as another explosion rocked the hulk as a million degree plasma torch started streaming a thousand feet into the sky from a ruptured plasma bottle battery sending another wave of ants with smaller ants mixed in, running across the pit that continued dying in front of him by the hundreds as the heat from the plasma torch started burning first their cloths and then…. Their flaming smoking bodies writhing and twitching as they finally flopped down on to the pits floor from the heat the torch was putting out. So many of what had to be children continuing to crawl away from the hulk long after they had to be dead. The heat of the torch burning his face as he watched until it suddenly went out leaving him feeling cold and alone. Realizing that if the plasma bottle had exploded, the flames could have killed him as they washed over him and the ship. Thankful that he had been part of the landing crew that had locked the landing legs down to the Pit. Surer that the locks would have kept the Queen from being toppled over from the concussion.

  A group of children came running out the Star Queen's hatch and across the ramp heading for the fanbus past the figure that continued to stare off into the distance at the rising smoke, ignori
ng the kids. “Hey! It is the four eyed retard.” Shouted one of the kids after he walked up to and was ignored by Mark even when he pulled on his sleeve. Mark finely looked briefly down at the boy before looking back up to stare at the flaming wreck that the children did not even notice. Spaceports were already old boring hats to them.

  “Hey moron; you better get off the cargo hatch platform before you get run down.” A teacher yelled at him as she walked past. "Come on! All of you on the bus now. Leave the blind retard alone."

  Not even realizing that he had heard the remarks though he had as Mark's eyes wondered over the surrounding area around the smoking pit with the burning ship in the center. Worried about the fire spreading to a ship nearby only to realize the ship near it was not just a damaged ship but a scorched hulk itself, with a half dozen other ship carcasses scattered around it.

  “Somebody take the blind ideate and show him how to get off the platform before he falls off the side.” Yelled a child running up from the hatch as a boy squinted holding his hands to his eyes, fingers touching thumbs, faking glasses and started stumbling around until he bumped into Mark. “I can’t see. Help me some one. Help me. I am special and can only see blurry shapes. Where is my seeing eye robot?” And then exaggeratedly tripped, falling down rolling across the ramp. “Hey....Help me! Help me Seeing Eye robot! I can’t get up.”

  Mark smiled sickly as he shook his head after being bumped into again, trying to get his mind off the devastation only a couple miles away. He had been given a Seeing Eye robot when he was 8 by a well-meaning church with more money than sense. It turned out to be a great spy after he and his school buddies did a few modifications to it. Sending it remotely through the ship creating all kinds of trouble that included getting even with some of the bullies without them knowing who; for a while. Chuckling he wondered where it had gotten off to. It had been a blast until him and his friends got bored with it when it was eventually barred from most of the ship's interesting spaces after (accidentally) sneaking into the girls showers for the 5th or 6th time.

  Though it resulted in Jolene tracing it back to them and joining their little group of nerds and freaks instead of turning them in. Though he seemed to vaguely remember her hanging around his little group just far enough away to keep from interacting with them directly for years. Then when they first started playing and experimenting with the little bot in school with her sitting on the other side of the classroom reading. Suddenly he wondered if she had simply used the bot in the shower as an excuse to join the group. That she hadn’t needed to track it back to them. The sudden epiphany made him smile as he decided to keep her secret.

  Another explosion got his attention.

  After glancing at the burning ship again his gaze settled on one of the ship hulks sitting on the ground a quarter mile from that pit toward the Queen. It was still up right but other than that it was a corps with dozens of holes and whole sections of hull gone with only a skeleton frame and decks left showing through the holes. And then he noticed the scorched hull guns circling what had once been the life boat deck on the lower half of the ship (a rather unusual location) and like the ship that had just died, it too had homemade shields around the front of the slightly shorter barreled 5 inch 17cal guns that were still intact. A somewhat worse version of the 5 inch 21's of the burning ship. But shields unlike any other shields on any other ship he had seen carrying the cheap, light weight, easy to install and use self-defense guns over the years. And that had been quite a few since the guns and the plasma bottle cases that powered them could be bought for scrap prices across most of the Empire. They seemed to flood in from the outer arm of the Galaxy as if someone was manufacturing them by the millions just to keep their workers busy. Ignoring the fact that they were practically useless except for moral purposes unless you were in a fleet ship with a lot of them and the speed to close with your enemy. Even then they were useless unless you were at point blank range. Though most tramps had to find that out the hard way after wasting good money on them and in several cases he knew about, one of which he could see in front of him; costing the ship it's life.

  After getting bumped into again and almost knocked over, Mark looked back at the hulk with the guns on the life boat deck at the bottom of the holds far from the personnel decks at the bow and the butterfly shields still brightly painted in spite of the scorching. He was sure that he had spent the better part of weeks playing with the kids on that ship during several of the Tramp Circus’s. The first time when he was 10 and several times since. A Circus was planned every couple of years and was at least half a hundred Tramp ships clustered together with each ship sucked up to at least one other ship's airlock with most attached to 3 or 4 and a few even more, forming a matrix for one big party. With no one keeping track of who was on what ship for the whole week (except for Marks parents, he had thought unfairly) as a congress was held and crews mated, married or simply transferred. Mark had spent most of his time playing on those very 5 inch 17cal. guns with their wing shaped gaudily painted shields. Each gun had been painted differently with Mark and his friends picking one of the flashiest for the target practice games, winning several medals including a Gold in the long range categories earning even more scorn from other crewmen, Chet being the worst. All competing with the guns that were so tame no one was afraid of letting even kids compete with them. Mark stared at the gun shield he could never forget or miss.

  “Get the pore bastard a wheelchair before he falls down.” Said one boy as most of the other children just arriving copied the first group and started wondering around the ramp bumping into each other and falling down and giggling. Then picking themselves up and doing it again as Mark continued to stare at the distant hulks trying not to get sick as he felt his world start to collapse. The last time the two ships had met he had gotten a lot intimate with one of the gals in several closets and out of the way spaces and was looking forward to seeing her again. For some reason she had found his stupid glasses, neat. Following him around and touching him every chance she got to Marks irritation at first. Though by the middle of the second circus he was starting to like her attentions.

  While the visible flames had died down with all the foam covering everything including the hundreds of ants. Smoke continued to rise in a column away from the Star Queen and the Port to the North as beams from the fire airtrucks started to cut the hulk apart to get at the fire even deeper inside the wreckage. Thinking of the friends he had made, being killed in a similar manor on the other ship brought a big lump to his throat as his neck muscles tightened and it became hard to see or breath as tears clouded his eyes. The hundreds of people he had met on that ship that had treated him both good and bad flooding through his mind. Especially all the friends him and his club mates had met and stayed in contact with over the years, meeting in so many ports as the two ships seemed to follow each other around the stars. Only now they had gone to a place he did not want the Star Queen following. Looking at the mass of bodies scattered across the tarmac of the distant pit and back at the hulk. No, he did not want the Queen following them anymore as tears came to his eyes. Wishing now that he had let the gal come visit during their last meeting stop instead of being embarrassed by the idea. Letting friends visit ships for a few weeks when the ships were scheduled to meet again was a common practice. Knowing that she would still be alive if he had said yes instead of running away embarrassed and a little afraid she would not like him anymore when Chet caught up to him and he lost yet another round.

  A teacher walked up. “Now children take pity on the pore boy and leave him alone. Get on the bus before you get left behind.” Stopping directly in front of Mark, blocking his view to get his attention, she made an exaggerated smile leaning in close almost touching his nose with hers, putting a hand on his shoulder. She started talking slowly making sure she pronounced every syllable of every word, practically shouting.

  “I am sorry Mark. I am Mrs. Hastings. Teacher in charge of the 3rd grade kids outing. The children me
an well but they are not used to seeing anyone with such a dilapidating handicap. The glasses do stand out and the kids do not see anyone wearing them except for small preschoolers before they get their eyes fixed if they need correcting. They really do not think you are stupid. You do understand don’t you Mark. You are not stupid; just not quite as intelligent as everyone else. Different is good and we must respect your difference. Don’t hold it against the children please.”

  Studying him for a few seconds as Mark stepped back wrinkling up his nose at her breath that smelled worse than the burning ship and took his thick lensed black rimed plastic glasses off. He used his shirt sleeve to wipe his face and cleaned the glasses with his shirt tail. His face went through several changes of expression as he tried to fight down the thought that the reason his friends had stopped E-mailing him was because they had burned alive and were dead, and not just broke down out of range between the stars for a very long time.

  Wiping his eyes with his shirt tail he opened his mouth only to croak as he tried to speak. Mark finally settled on a closed lip forced smile as he wiped his wet eyes again and put the glasses back on and stared at the lady as she continued, shoving her face up close again. “It is Ok for you to be emotional just because you don’t understand things very well but you are not stupid. Do you need help back into the ship? It is a long drop off the edge of the platform.”