Chapter 2: Sjena Zlo Ozdraviti

"The story begins here. The story ends when I run out of words and enough enough people have died." - Sjena Zlo Ozdraviti

Zjena had been daydreaming instead of watching the radar. The two Ratters had jumped in during that momentary lapse and almost killed him. The radar lit up and sirens were shrieking that he'd been gun locked. Sjena fired his shield boosters and sent his two combat drones on an intercept course to the Ratters. There was a flash of light and a jump boom to his left. A small, nimble craft, like a lightning bolt, sped by Sjena, outboard guns blazing in tracer orange streaks reaching out like the finger of the gods to the two enemy skimmer ships. Now he was really shitting it. Often times bigger, worse enemies, took advantage of unwary miners engaged with Ratters in order to take everyone out and feast on the salvage. 

He could feel the vibrato dull thumps of the accelerant, even through the vacuum of space. The first Ratter had no time for regrets as the fireball consumed all the volatile chems inside his ship. Orange and green tendrils of sparking tritanium fading from brilliant to a dull glow and suddenly the small skimmer ship was nothing but another salvage wreck to be exploited. 

The second of the pair tried to turn and run. She met the same fate but had a moment to consider her life choices. Point zero-nine seconds later she was just bio-mass floating in the frigid void. Sjena finally realized that the new arrival posed no danger.

It was J.P., it was only J.P., Sjena thought. Thank the gods J.P. had been checking out some artifact ruins in a near by asteroid field and jumped in just in time to save Sjena's a*s.

"That's another one you owe me.", a voice crackled through the comms.

Sejna sighed to himself in spite of the fact that J.P. was his half brother and loved him very much.

"I know, I know. What? Are you keeping count now?"

"You can make it up to me by buying the first round when we get back to the station in Ogoten."

Ogoten. Sjena thought. Ogoten is the a*s end of nowhere, and Aderkan was the a*s end of that. A slow smile spread across Sjena's lips and he spoke back into the comm,"Yeah, it'll be nice to get home."

"You almost finished?", J.P. asked.

"Yeah, just. Those Rats waited till I was done to jump me. Trying to catch me with me screens down."

"Roger that. Ok bro, I'll catch ya back at the station."

He could see J.P.'s jump drive spool up half a second before he streaked out toward the system jump gate as Sjena spooled up his own slower jump drive. The bigger they are.., Sjena thought. He could hear the plasma whine and feel the ship ready itself like a coiled spring and several hundred thousand metric tons of ice harvesting tritanium slung out of the field and shot toward home.