"We have new contacts, a cluster of 20 this time."
"So more miners? Great."
Tethered to a natural satellite the size of a 3 story building, Mike and River's ship gave off so little waste heat that multiple miners had passed right by them, a group had even started scanning the satellite the pair was tethered to before spotting their fighter. From there it had been a waiting game, the high amount of waste heat generated when ships exited supercruise made them easy to scan so it was just about waiting for the pirates to show up.
That was the idea anyway, but after 11 hours of waiting with a partner that hated his guts and didn't seem to know about the concept of 'small talk' started to wear on Mike.
"No I don't think these are miners, the signals aren't standard at all… It's a recovery flotilla!"
"What the fuck!?"
Booting up all the dormant systems and revving the reactor into overdrive, Mike didn't even bother about the tethers and snapped them as he lit the afterburner.
"How the hell did we miss them?"
"I have no idea."
A recovery flotilla meant one or multiple mines had already been mugged, not only that, they had been attacked so long ago that recovery had not only been requested but already arrived. Of course, this made no sense as Mike and River had already swept the entire area when they arrived, but also monitored and scanned every single arrival. In that case, how did the pirates attack miners, furthermore it had all happened without Mike and River noticing anything. Following after the flotilla, Mike arrived at a hellscape of 15 decimated mining ships, their cargo holds blown open, some vital equipment crudely removed and mutilated corpses floating around in the middle of it all.
"Well, shit. Looks like we missed them, how the fuck did we miss them?"
"Nevermind how we missed the pirates, we need to help with recovery!"
While Mike elicited no other response than slight annoyance at not catching his prey, River saw the chance to possibly help save a life and jumped at it.
"Absolutely not, we have no equipment to aid recovery and we're short on time, I wanted to be out of this system 4 hours ago."
Having spent more time than planned on what he figured would be an easy pirate hunting mission, Mike wasn't about to waste even more time digging corpses out of wrecked mining vessels.
"But!-"
"If you want to save some mines help me figure out how we missed the pirates! If we're lucky they're still here."
"Okay, how do you suggest we do that!? We haven't spotted them entering this area or leaving! We have shit intel, absolutely nothing to go by and a literal planetary belt to search!"
While shouting at him, River was definitely regretting teaming up with Mike. Sure, he was a great pilot, but everything else was lacking. Unaware that his stock had just gone down massively, River's words seemed to echo over and over again in Mike's head as his subconsciousness screamed at him that he was missing something important.
Then it clicked.
"... That's it."
"What the hell are you-"
"You said it perfectly River, we haven't seen them enter this area or leave it. The only two options remaining are that they entered and left the area with a Witch drive or that they're still here somewhere."
With his mind going into overdrive, Mike hardly even noticed nor paid attention to River's words as he worked the ship systems to turn off anything that would interfere with the scanners while boosting out of the ring.
"What the hell is a-"
"They have a base here somewhere, most likely inside a hollowed-out satalite. Look for an area with no noise, they're using a mix of jammers, stealth tech and projectors… I know you would rather not, but please trust me on this one."
"... Fine, but if this doesn't work we're selling this piece of shit fighter and splitting the cash."
Leaving the belt and putting a good amount of distance from it, Mike pointed back to it before powering down everything except the sensors and life support systems.
"Okay, we have minimal interference all the way out here. Using CMB as a 'flashlight', look for any point where there is a void."
"So not looking for an overt source of radiation but a void in the cosmic background radiation? I think that's crazy enough to work…"
Falling silent as she concentrated, River started going over the ring slowly and methodically, sector by sector.
"I fucking got them! There's a void, just like you said!"
"Great…"
While Mike figured it was a long shot, finding the pirate outpost wasn't entirely good news.
(Why the hell is this sort of cutting edge tech that's normally restricted to black operations by megacorporations and superpowers being used by pirates for something as lowly as jumping ice miners? And how are they even maintaining this shit?... This stinks of something else.)
Returning to the belt, Mike slowly and gradually approached the sensor void until he made visual contact.
"So here it is?"
Finding the sensor void which looked exactly like the rest of the belt, Mike and River soon found a 3 story sized chunk of ice and rock which looked slightly off after staring at it for a few minutes.
"... What now? Call the local security forces?"
Clearly out of their league and quite possibly outgunned not to mention outnumbered, River considered falling back and calling for backup.
Mike however didn't share those concerns.
"Hell no, we need cash and have bounties to claim right in front of us. I saw we poke a hole in their pretty little base, then bleed them dry."
Staring at Mike's shit-eating grin for a few seconds River was about to protest when she noticed the look he had in his eyes, it was the exact same look he had had when they first met.
"Fine, I'll support. Feel free to engage whenever."
"That's what I wanted to hear!"
Trotting the reactor to combat output and venting the atmosphere inside both cockpits and the small crawlway which connected them both, Mike unlocked the safety on the railgun before going to ammunition selection.
"Let's try for maximum casualties, give me a reactive munition with a distance fuse. Set the detonation point to 5 metres inside the target."
With the railgun being their sole armament and it not really suited for all types of targets, Mike had wisely invested in a bit of specialist ammunition. While the standard railgun munition would either be amour piercing darts or flechettes made to punch through thick shields and armour at long range, Mike chose to open up with a programmable high explosive round as standard armour piercing wouldn't do much other than punching a 25 mm hole in the base.
"Munition programmed, fire when ready."
With River having configured the munition, Mike squeezed the trigger not even a second after. As the railgun fired the heavily reinforced chassis all around Mike screamed like it wanted to tear itself apart, but due to the outstanding recoil control system and thruster pack, the ship hardly moved. The supposed impact had been instant, but as whatever cloaking tech hid the pirate base was still functioning there was no visible change to Mike's target, nor was there any air to carry the sound of impact so the only indication that Mike had just fired was the sound of the recoil control system and the autoloader carousel readying a new round.
"Gun is recharging, 10 seconds till next shot."
"Thanks River, give me some flechettes this time, that should be enough to lure them out so I'll make do with straight AP after."
Scooting to the side in behind cover of a chunk of ice twice the size of his own ship, Mike timed it perfectly and poked out behind cover exactly at the same time as he fired.
"Now we definitely have their attention."
Starting a new countdown from 10 inside his head, Mike focused his attention on the scanner in between his stick and throttle as he put the ship into full reverse.
"Emm! Rocks!"
"Yeah, I see them. Well, I don't really 'see' see them, but that's beside the point."
Working the manoeuvring thrusters plastered all over the ship like they were an extension of his own body, Mike avoided any obstacles with a razor-thin margin while the stealth tech finally started failing after two direct hits.
"Now that's more like it…"
"4 new contacts! They're running directly out of the belt!"
"Abandoning their cover and running without a semblance of area security? It's almost like they want to get shot."
Sure, getting out of the belt technically be the fastest way to escape, that also meant abandoning the cover it offered, leaving it all to Mike and giving him a vast advantage.
Tracking the group of 4 pirate crafts running for their lives as he continued reversing at full speed, Mike quickly identified the modified troop dropship mentioned in the guild report. Said dropship was likely stuffed with the pirate's loot, and that's exactly why he targeted it first.
"Here comes some G's."
Lighting the afterburner as he transitioned to full forward flight from reverse, Mike disabled the flight assist and G limiter by slamming his foot on the central pedal to manoeuvre into a pursuit after the group of pirates that were running out of the belt.
"They've spotted us! 3 ships have a target lock on us!"
With numerous warnings flashing on River's displays she warned Mike who was already busy ignoring the ships that had targeted him.
Breaking direct line of sight with the pirates that were counterattacking by ducking in behind cover, Mike continued chasing the real prize as the first pirate opened fire with a set of chin-mounted rotary cannons.
Not bothering to slow down just so he could get shot at, Miked kept up a frankly absurd speed as he continually disabled the G limiter and flight assistance in order to weave in between chunks of ice easily able to crush him. Having seen through Mike's plan and wanting to hinder him at all cost, the second pirate that had broken off from the dropship also opened fire with a low fire rate high calibre cannon.
"The dropship has broken free of the belt! He's already engaging the FTL drive!"
With heat readings of the dropship spiking directly after it cleared the final chunk of ice, it was clear the pirate was planning on leaving his comrades behind. They had most likely planned to regroup at some point in deep space, that or he was really running with all the loot.
"Yeah I see him, doesn't the moron know that engaging the FTL drive that early is just going to make him an easier target? He still needs to clear the gravity well before he can jump, not that I'll let him of course."
Cutting primary throttle and starting a free float so he could aim better, Mike locked the dropship's vector in the fire control system as he started squeezing the trigger. By telling the fire control system its target and squeezing the trigger, Mike let the system know it could fire whenever, just as long as the dropship was in sight and was indicated by an ever-present high pitch tone coming out the headset integrated into his helmet.
"He's jumping!"
"No he's not!-"
Making last-second targeting adjustments as space started warping around the dropship, the tone which had been threatening to make Mike go deaf finally cut out as the fire control system fired.
"- Not without propulsion he isn't!"
With an almost instant travel time inside 10 kilometres, the 25 mm armour-piercing railgun sabot punched directly through the dropship's shield and armour plating, taking out one of its primary thrusters before exiting cleanly out of the other side of the ship. Losing a primary thruster, the dropship quickly started spinning out of control as its flight systems computer aborted the FTL jump last second.
"Nice shot!... Missile warning!"
Without even a second to celebrate, River noticed the track of heat-seeking missiles quickly approaching as the Scorpion's automatic defence system started deploying flares.
"Save the flares!"
Relighting the primary thrusters, Mike flipped his ship around without caring for G limits before lighting the afterburner to open up the distance between him and the heatseekers while still avoiding a direct line of sight with the 3 remaining pirates who had now started chasing him even more fervently.
Finding something else to dump the heatseekers into was easy as Mike still found himself inside a relatively dense part of the belt. Looping around a house-sized chunk of ice to defeat the missiles, Mike locked the cannon-equipped pirate ship with the fire control system and squeezed the trigger. Having anticipated what Mike was doing, the cannon-equipped pirate ship was ready when Mike emerged, but sadly cannon fire travelled a lot slower than railgun fire and while Mike was easily able to avoid the cannon shell while the amour pricing railgun sabot hit the pirate's cockpit before borrowing clean through the rest of his ship, hitting the reactor on the way.
"Fuck! The security forces are bound to be on their way now…"
As the bright explosion quickly swallowed the pirate ship and a few of the nearby chunks of ice, Mike realised his time alone with the two remaining pirates would be limited.
The blast of the first pirate not only blinded another which had been way too close, but it also demotivated the final pirate who had fired heat-seeking missiles at Mike a few seconds earlier so he turned to run.
Of course, this made him an easy target, so it didn't take more than a minute for Mike to wipe out the last two pirates.