"So how come you're so good a pilot if your old world didn't even expand beyond one single system? Were there a lot of wars between planets?"
"Nope, no way. We only just found out how to briefly visit the moon about 40 years prior. I got good at flying because I played a shitton of Interstellar Online, since it was just a game losing a fight against pirates or crashing headfirst into an asteroid just meant you had to dish out a small insurance fee and you were magically transported back to the last station you docked at with the ship you just lost."
After she decided to believe what Mike had told her about being a nerdy college student from Earth about an hour prior, River hadn't stopped asking questions about Mike's life and how it was living on a planet while the pair resumed their pirate hunting throughout the Trane Imperium capital system.
"So you basically got to practice a lot?"
"I got to fight to the death without consequences for years of equivalent time within the world of Interstellar Online, it seems like this avatar somehow not only lived through all that but also absorbed all the experience which came with that kind of life."
Sitting in normal space a few light seconds outside of Crown station with sensors deployed, Mike and River hoped to discover the pirates who lay in wait for outsiders to get rejected entry to Crown station and head for Phillip station instead… Basically, they were hoping to jump some of the pirates who had jumped them when they first arrived in the system.
Feeling River's stare on him for quite some time after a natural lull in the conversation left both Mike and River without anything to talk about, Mike made the mistake of asking.
"What?"
"Avatar… So that body is not originally yours Mike? How does your real body look? Don't tell me you're some fat nerd with a neckbeard…"
"I AM NOT! Believe it or not, I'm the type of RPG player that customises their avatar to look just like themselves in real life, that way it is easier to get immersed in the game world!"
"That's a great excuse, almost like you practised it…"
"I DID NOT!"
Snapping back at River's snarky remark he found the woman doing her best impression of a disgusted face, but that only lasted for a few seconds before her mask broke and she started laughing while halfheartedly apologising.
"Sorry sorry~ Then I take it you take after your mother more than your dad right?"
"... Correct.
"Of course I am-"
"Found something."
Cutting the chit-chat the second the Scorpion's sensors picked up a faint trace of something Mike focused entirely on the sensor readout as he switched gears in a split second.
"Hmm?... That just looks like a cluster of space debris."
"True but it's clustered too closely, stuff drifting on its own in interplanetary orbits like this tends to separate things out quickly."
Starting up the Scorpion's reactor, Mike powered on the main drives and started to accelerate for a jump to supercruise as River locked the nav system on their new contact while preparing the ship for the jump.
"Then we might as well check it out, even if it isn't pirates it might be a smuggler cache instead all is in the name of our glorious operation headpat!"
"Could we please use another name for that?..."
"Nope~ I like it."
With space being just as vast and mostly empty as the word itself suggested, River realised that what Mike had pointed out made some amount of sense.
"Then we go in guns blazing?"
"I want to make sure they have bounties on their heads before blasting them, but yeah, that's the idea."
While suddenly jumping into normal space did offer one hell of an element of surprise on a tactical level, the waste heat generated by the FTL drive meant such a manoeuvre would make any attacker light up like a Christmas tree to any defender, meaning just as the element of surprise was extremely short-lived with such a manoeuvre, so was the overall tactical advantage.
"Got it, I'll make sure we jump in relatively close and are already moving in their direction then."
Working both the sensors and the navigation system, River continuously updated the waypoint for exiting supercruise as the Scorpion moved ever closer to the suspected pirates.
"Okay ready to disengage FTL drive, the second we hit normal space I want a positive ID on the closest contact, don't mind any of the others just get me the first while warming up the railgun."
"Roger, APFSDS loaded. We're nearing the signal, exiting supercruise in 5… 3… 1… Now!"
As the soaring streaks of the sky suddenly turned back into stationary stars and nebula time seemed to slow down inside Mike's head as he scanned the space in front of the Scorpion. Finding a group of 4 ships all tethered to a large cargo container, River worked quickly and focused on just a single target as Mike had told her.
"Contact 1 has a sizable bounty! Furthermore, his systems are rapidly coming online, we caught them with their pants down!"
"Perfect!"
All too happy to take advantage of his enemy's missteps Mike cut the main propulsion for a split second and went into a free drift towards the pirates as he refined his target solution, squeezing the trigger the second he locked on to the first pirate's cockpit.
"Got you."
"Contact 1 neutralised! The rest of them are getting online, we're already target locked by 2!"
In the split-second Mike felt the recoil of the railgun just beside him Mike relit the main propulsion along with the afterburner.
"Time to reload?"
"4 seconds!"
Making plans based on the time needed to reload Mike whizzed straight past the group of pirates still tethered to the cargo container before slamming his foot down on the central and left foot pedal while yanking the stick as hard as he could. The result of his insane treatment of the controls was an equally insane whip around of the Scorpion as Mike locked the next pirate ship's cockpit and enabled the automatic fire control system and squeezed the trigger as a high tone started to sound out inside his helmet. In the split second the barrel of the Scorpion's railgun aligned properly with the target the fire control system fired as Mike continued his insane manoeuvres to avoid two remaining pirates now thoroughly pissed at Mike and River for killing two of their comrades.
"Die fuckface!"
"Yeah, good luck! With that shitty tracking, we'll suffer the heat death of the universe before that happens!"
Although there were no lines of communication open between the pirates and him, Mike was practically able to hear them complain loudly about how poorly the pirate's multi cannons were tracking Mike as he whizzed around. While the multi-cannon-equipped pirate had problems tracking the Scorpion as it kept at around the range of a kilometre, his laser-equipped buddy wouldn't have the same issues, but that was assuming Mike would stop putting the pirate's container between himself and the arc of the laser cannons at all times.
"Stop moving around you-"
Constantly stuck responding to the Scorpion's movements the laser-equipped pirate couldn't follow properly when Mike abruptly changed his evasion pattern and put an armour-piercing sabot straight through his cockpit. With all his friends dead the last pirate fruitlessly attempted to close the range but hardly managed to before the Scorpion's railgun recharged.
"And that's that."
"Thank fuck for that, I almost passed a few times at there at the end…"
Still not quite used to the insane way Mike manoeuvred to avoid hostile fire, River used her recently rediscovered ability to breathe to the fullest extent and packed her dizzy and oxygen-poor body with fresh air.
"Well at least you didn't pass out this time, that means you're slowly getting used to it."
"It's just because I have a great G suit now, you still fly like a goddamn lunatic!"
Even if she was angry at how she had been thrown around and almost thrown up her most recent meal, River's anger quickly dissipated, mostly due to the fact that the Scorpion hadn't been hit a single time in that engagement.
Element of surprise aside, facing 4 hostiles in a single ship and emerging victorious without even a paint scratch was just as absurd as Mike's piloting so it wasn't surprising that the two events were connected.
"Okay, I'll head over there now, take a safe distance after I pass the tether."
[Sure thing, don't blow yourself up now.]
After dealing with the pirate Mike and River were left to deal with the large container the pirates had been tethered to, although scans of it showed no heat, electronic or life signature there was still the entire mystery of what was inside it so after towing it a few clicks away from the wrecked pirates, Mike decided to find out what was inside with a little EVA trip. Having sealed off his cockpit to the rest of the ship, Mike exited the Scorpion into deep space as his boots magnetised to the ship. From the cockpit, Mike needed to reach the tether line that connected the Scorpion and the cargo container, a relatively simple job as River only maintained the slightest of constant acceleration using the manoeuvring thrusters to keep the tether line tot.
"You know I used to watch videos of astronauts doing spacewalks like this on Earth's international space station, never in a million years did I think I would be doing the same."
[Oh yeah? Congratulations astronaut Mike, you've done your country a great service by becoming your sad little country's first person to step into space, truly one for the record books.]
"Come on we had one other astronaut beforehand, although he only stayed a short while on the station that still counts for something."
Continuing the friendly banter with River, Mike eventually reached the tether and slid down it before setting foot on the cargo container and magnetising his boots to stick to it. From that point on, River detached the tether line and took a safe distance from the container before Mike started investigating it like they had agreed on beforehand, although River had only agreed that Mike should be the one to go when he came up with a bullshit excuse that he could get away if the container was trapped using thrusters in his suit.
The real reason was of course that Mike didn't want to expose River to any unnecessary danger, but as he didn't want to admit that Mike had just decided to lie instead.
(Okay now, I know this is standard in Interstellar Online, but please nobody traps now…)
Carefully wedging his knife into the relatively simple lock on the cargo container large enough to fit a two-story house inside, Mike used his vac suit's sensors to check for wires or any other sign of a trap as he slowly pried the door open. After a few very tense moments Mike eventually concluded that the container wasn't trapped and opened it, only he really wished he hadn't once he did.
"Well, shit."
[Whaddya find?]
Examining the insides which were way more high-tech than the outside might have indicated, Mike went inside without answering River, leaving her slightly miffed.
[What is it? Come on, what is it?]
"Give me a second."
The inside of the container seemed to be a mobile laboratory of some kind, and an extremely high-tech one at that with equipment worth a small space station strapped to every surface inside. Turning on flashlights on both his helmet and arms, Mike gradually got an idea of what kind of lab he found himself inside as he examined the equipment.
"... This is a mobile drug manufacturing plant, and a fucking high-tech one at that."
No doubt belonging to the biomedical corporation that had attempted to take control of the Trane Imperium by creating a substance abuse epidemic, the lab itself was priceless given that the Trane Imperium was still looking for evidence to build a case against the company and sue them into the ground, the fact that Mike and River had found this place meant they were now forced to deal with the Trane Imperium again, even as they were attempting to run away from them before getting recruited.
[Well, shit.]