Asteroids
Festival Among the Rocks

WRITTEN BY LUKE ROUNDA

Top Priority Subspace Message
TO: Pilot 122, Lieutenant Michael ‘Nomad’ Ellison
FROM: Admiral Lance Harlow, Astro-Mining Corporation
SUBJECT: Reassignment
ATTACHED: Assignment Orders, Sigma Delta map

Pilot, your record as our top gunner in the current rankings has earned you a higher position in the Galactic Asteroid Mining and Drilling Corporation (GAMDC). As of now you have been granted a field promotion to Acting Captain and are ordered to the asteroid field known as Sigma Delta. As the Astro-Mining Corp. is a military funded endeavor, you will have the chance to test some new, experimental weaponry, provided you can keep a log detailing the performance of these armaments.

To date you are one of a select few who have survived the rigors of gunning for GAMDC. However, you have also never experienced ship-to-ship combat against the Aliens, which goes against you when considering your assignment. Sigma Delta has been rated quite low on the probability of survival charts and is a suspected breeding ground for extraterrestrials. We do not expect this to be a problem. If anything does go wrong, you’ve been equipped with a Standard Issue GAMDC Emergency Hyperspace Transmitter, which would probably notify GAMDC of your situation within two weeks.

Your orders are to make a sweep of the entire field (108 x 86 km), destroying all debris registering as a Hazard Level 4 and above. Alien fighters, transports, and carriers are to be taken out if at all possible. You will be compensated accordingly for this supplementary work, with each saucer giving you an added bonus of one thousand credits.

Your particular Dagger-class fighter has been rated with about twenty hours of fuel, so you should consider making stops at refueling outposts buried within the cores of several larger asteroids (indicated by ‘O’ symbols on your starmap of the Sigma Delta Field) before you get too close to exhausting your reserves. Also, note that some weaponry stored in these outposts and drifting amongst the asteroids will cause an enormous drain on your stored energy supply – for example, the MW-232X Armageddon Cannon System – which will disallow any subsequent firings until your banks are recharged.

Estimated time to completion of this mission is approximately two months, four days. Good luck and good hunting, Captain.

- - -

Michael Ellison set to busying himself with his ship’s controls, though his mind was still on the message from Harlow. A faint indicator in the upper right of his Heads Up Display reading Mintaka System glowed in luminescent green letters. He was a few thousand light years from any GAMDC base, or Sigma Delta. Somehow, Ellison felt safer knowing where he was.

He brought himself back to reality when the gauge responsible for informing him of a tractor beam lock went off.

It flickered from on to inactive, indicating that the beam was searching for a link but couldn’t quite get it. Ellison slowed his slightly modified Dagger attack fighter, lining up with two red markers on his HUD, and felt a painful jolt in the side as the beam lassoed his ship and disrupted his compensators for a string of precious seconds. About the only thing worse was his upcoming eight hour trip through hyperspace...

The blue magnetic beam hauled the little ship in without much care for the comfort of the ride, being joined by a pair of other magnetic tractors for precision landing. The Dagger slammed into the deck of the shiny, white launch pad with enough force to rattle Michael’s teeth inside his mouth. Maybe these systems were getting better at their job...

Beneath the fighter, the launch pad irised open, leaving the Dagger suspended with only the beams keeping it space-worthy. The fourth and final beam took hold and pulled Ellison’s ship down into the snug little landing compartment. After a couple of odd minutes, the green light indicator finally went off and the canopy popped open. Michael unstrapped his harnesses and beltbuckles and popped off his helmet, sliding down the ladder with his bag in hand. He hit the ground with a reassuring thud and remembered about being in real gravity. An excellent memory.

Michael nudged the bag over his shoulder and calmly passed the repair technicians coming through the opened doors. They blazed by with fuel hoses, toolbelts, and a wide variety of electronics devices to run down a checklist and prepare the Dagger for its next run. They had better do their jobs well; it wasn’t a trip to the corner grocery store for refit and repair of a spacecraft. The prices were outrageous, and only those rich enough to own one would be able to pay. It was probably also the one thing that stood between Michael and the easy life, living off of asteroid money. Each time he put in to port, he lost most of his funds from his last excursion, reducing his credit just enough to warrant another mission. And so it continued. He’d probably been at it...oh, about five or six years now. Ah, the life of a mercenary was wonderful in some ways.

The only cons, as far as Ellison could see, were the 30 pay reduction (supposedly to help fund the war effort) from each trip to the fields, and the fact that he was working for the mega-conglomerate Astro-Mining Corporation in the first place. Unfortunately, no one else would pay to blast asteroids, and he’d seen and heard of pilots that had braved the dangers of fields like Antares, Cygnus X-1 (infamous for its black hole), and the distant Talshambrae Cluster, possibly one of the strangest systems on the charts. Its ancient cloud filled with the strange, blue, regenerating crystal asteroids was one site on GAMDC’s ‘Hitlist’ that would probably always be there. From what Michael had heard, a fleet of fighters and other miscellaneous support ships would probably be needed to clear this avenue of space, which was something the military and GAMDC would not commit to.

The pilots that had done their jobs in systems such as these earned respect throughout the ranks of GAMDC, retired to live out their days on utopian moons they named after themselves, and with more money than they knew what to do with. It was the goal Michael had been grabbing at for his long career as an asteroid gunner. Now, with his assignment to clear Sigma Delta, it just might be in reach...

And it didn’t come a moment too soon, in Michael’s opinion. He’d signed on with GAMDC as opposed to the military so he wouldn’t have to put up with all of the penny-pinching nonsense and inadequate pay...apparently ‘militarily funded’ and ‘the military’ were one in the same. To make things worse, GAMDC threw in preachy admirals who told you things you probably knew more about than they did. Ellison knew how to read a map, he knew how and for how long to fly his ship, and he certainly didn’t need any of the ‘Acting Captain’ stuff, either. Promotions? He was an asteroid smasher, for crying out loud, and not with the military. The titles were meaningless to Ellison.

About this time he’d reached the end of the corridor and stepped out onto the main concourse. Trams hovered past with all varieties of passengers: the camera-wielding sightseers, the rich-men taking a luxury cruise from system to system, the corporate assassins (identifiable by alien gems, black garments and blasters), the army men (always dressed in those annoying blue tunics and swaggering around like it was their playpen), and the spacers, who would hang around outposts such as this for weeks at a time, with no apparent goal other than to pay room fees and get drunk at the station’s numerous bars. Outposts were infested, stinking holes on the starmaps, but Ellison had been hanging around them for plenty of time to get used to it.

He grabbed a lift on a passing tram, shoved a sightseer out of his way to a screaming protest, and took a seat in the center row, wedged in-between a rather plump rich man and one of the assassins. He didn’t particularly care about the stares he drew; he looked like a pilot, but it was the way he liked it, and most who didn’t got Michael’s fist buried into their face.

He wore several layers of clothing, ranging in color from dark gray to black, that covered his long figure in a sort of a ragtag look. Over the various shirts and pieces of clothing, Ellison wore a simple brown jacket, purchased from a foreign market on some fringe world Michael no longer remembered where. A handy assortment of trinkets and accessories were seated inside of its many pockets. A pair of imported boots came up to his ankles, laced high and clean as the day he’d gotten them. His hair was getting a bit too long and starting to hang down by his neck, and he desperately needed a shave. It was to be expected – he’d only finished his last assignment in the Celeste System a few spare days ago.

“Hey, Nomad, long time no see, buddy!” the man next to him piped up. Michael spun around to glare at the black clad assassin, and saw Jason Kain, an old friend from the time just prior to his days amongst the asteroids. He and Jason had flown side by side and brought in bounties for anonymous employers for more than twice as long as Michael had been in the asteroid business.

Kain’s blue-gray eyes were as vigilant and distrusting as usual, and sly grin was plastered onto his face. As much as Michael hated to admit it, he flew as slick as he dressed. Every part of his body that he felt he could cover with an article of clothing he had – his hands were shrouded in leather gloves with the fingers neatly snipped off. Two blasters sat snug in their holsters on each hip. Apparently he didn’t need Ellison around to continue indulging himself with whatever money he was paid.

“Whaddya know, fancy me meeting you in Orion’s Belt. I thought you hated everyone who lived here?” Michael commented, remembering vividly several remarks Kain had made when they flew together years earlier.

Jason shrugged with indifference and grinned. “Yeah, well, I needed some gas and thought I could stand a round of cards. So, here I am, right in the middle of the scum of the Galaxy.”

“You won, didn’t you?”

“Well, maybe a few hands here and there...” Jason smiled crookedly, “C’mon, we’ll get off at the junction, I’ll take you to the Cracked Shotglass; we can get ourselves somethin’ to quaff, maybe talk about old times? Eh?”

“Sure. Should take the techies down in the landing compartment at least a day to get my ship up to specs...I’ve got plenty of time, cash, and stability of mind to blow. Just lemme get a room and drop off my stuff, and I’ll meet you there...where’d you say it was?”

Jason perked up. “Third level, second junction. Take a right and follow it into the mass of drunken psychopaths under the neon sign...” He winked and hopped off of the tram without much effort.

- - -

Crammed with bustle, the third level was hard to navigate after skipping off the tram near what Mike thought was an elevator, and the local merchants were a pain, stepping right into the middle of the crowd and trying to sell cheap gizmos to place in your spaceship. The ceiling was low, the air sparse; they needed a heavy “cutback on population,” Michael reflected as he shoved another of the merchants aside. Finally he saw his destination – a waiting desk next to an elevator.

Kicking and pushing his way through the crowd, he stepped up to the desk, reached into his jacket pocket and tossed an assets pad at the clerk.

“And how long will you be staying with us here at Mintaka, Sir?” he asked casually while writing up Michael’s name, contact number and occupation in the guest log. He poised a finger over the numeric keypad on the assets book and looked up for Mike’s response.

“Full R&R job on my ship, plus two days.” Ellison replied, his standard response to the standard clerk question.

“Okee,” the clerk said tersely, typing with one hand on Mike’s assets book and then transferring the numbers to his own pad, “that’s an estimated five-thousand credits for a repair, two thousand for a refuel, seventy-five credits for a room. Here’s your keycard, desk number, and the number for your repair crew; NEXT!”

And so, it was done. Mike swiped his assets book with skilled accuracy, stuffed the keycard for his room into a pocket, and headed for the lift next to the desk. His wait was somewhere around five minutes, possibly more. The lift finally made its rounds and came back, whereupon Ellison and a dozen other new arrivals ran each other down as they shuffled into the elevator and ran keycards down the numerous slots in the lift’s walls. After several seconds of internal organization on the lift computer’s part, the doors snapped shut and they started to cruise down the tunnel.

Out of curiosity, Mike glanced at his card before he put it back into his pocket. The card was keyed to instruct the elevator to take Michael somewhere on one of the highest levels. Great, just perfect. They’d probably passed four floors already - going the opposite direction. It was no man’s land with these starbases; perhaps as a rule of etiquette set forth by the management, or perhaps just for their own enjoyment, the clerks seemed to randomize the cards before each shift. One customer would get level twenty, another would get level zero.

Ellison sighed and jammed the card back into his jacket pocket, next to the assets book. He checked his chronometer, rolled his eyes at the inefficiency of the station’s mechanic, and tapped his foot. The elevator was rapidly clearing - he wound up somewhere in the middle of the list, jumped out onto the sixteenth floor, and just barely missed having his boot jammed in the lift doors as they snapped closed and the elevator continued on its journey.

He almost screamed with exultation as he heard the quiet stillness of the long gray corridor - nothing but the quiet hum of the electrical wiring above him, the rattle of the upper level power reactor, and the whistle of air through small cracks in the ceiling. Peace!

Well, close enough, anyway. Ellison searched blindly for about five minutes before he finally found the door the keycard would open and stumbled inside. It was dull white, with a small window near the bunk on the far wall. A small nightstand/dresser combination was situated next to the bed. Atop the stand sat a lamp with a strange purple shade, and some kind of alien flora. It was obviously about to die, Michael noted, from the blackened flowers and snapped vines. The room was quite Spartan, but with all of the other expenses an installation had to keep track of, of what importance was one hotel suite, anyhow?

He went over and sat down on the bunk, unbuckled his pack, and took out a small unlabeled bottle, filled with a rather unstable looking drink with blue coloration. Ellison uncorked the bottle and sniffed at it. A rather savory aroma, actually; the years of distilling in Michael’s travel bag must have helped it somewhat.

Michael corked the bottle again and stuck it into his front jacket pocket. Making sure everything he needed was on his person, he dropped his bag on the floor, kicked it out of sight under the bunk, and exited, heading for another ride on the elevator.

- - -

Slick jazz music was piped into the bar from a hidden apparatus somewhere behind one of the walls, interrupted by occasional shrill laughter from the bar’s crazed patrons as they drank themselves stupid. Brawls were common, strange liquors were plentiful, and the noise had to be as nerve-wracking as the whine of hyperspace engines warming up.

Jason “Marauder” Kain sat amongst this uninterrupted chaos and tapped his foot to the music, what little part of it he could hear. He sat near the door in a red cushioned booth with a recently cleaned table. Sitting in its center was a tall, clear carafe and several thimble-sized glasses arranged on a tray. The bottle was occupied by the special of the house, a clear beverage the barkeep called the “Three Star Smash.” It sounded like an interesting prospect, so Jason bought a large portion of the stuff and was still sampling it when Michael walked in the door.

Kain swallowed the thimble-full of Three Star and motioned him over. As the pilot slid into the booth, Kain greeted him, “What kept ya, man? I’ve been waitin’ twenty minutes.”

“It’s a starbase, Jason...” Michael replied wryly.

Kain apparently didn’t require any more conversation at the moment, as he immediately followed up, “Mike – you have to try this stuff. Specialty o’ the house. Don’t know what it’s got in it, but I’m already gettin’ bleary-eyed.”

Ellison raised an inquiring eyebrow at his old friend as he retrieved the flask of liquor from his jacket and uncorked it again.

“No thanks, Jase, I think I’ll stick to the blue stuff for now. Probably safer.”

“Uh, champ, I wouldn’t drink that if I were you –” Kain warned, too late, as Michael tilted it back and took a large drink. His eyes widened as he swallowed, then gulped.

“Ow.”

“It’s uh, that Talosian brandy I gave you a few years ago...’cept, when I forked that little bottle over, it was red...” Kain informed him with glee.

Michael rolled his eyes to one side and raised his eyebrows, setting the bottle down and scooting it aside. “My mistake. Pass that stuff, then, eh?” he quickly added, indicating the Three Star.

“Haha, ‘ere ya go,” Jason chuckled, pouring a glass of the drink, “I think that stuff’s saved me in more than one poker match this week.”

“So,” Ellison began as he downed the liquid, “what’s the best hunter this side of the Galaxy been up to since his loyal sidekick left him?”

Jason took a swallow and shifted in the booth, replying, “Escort for civvie ships, mostly, but I’ve found time here and there for a bounty or two.”

“Civilian ‘sports? C’mon, Jason, you didn’t give yourself that ‘Marauder’ handle just to make your name sound catchy.”

Jason smiled cryptically. “True enough. The hunter line seems to have swelled from a meager few to a bountiful number of zealous gun-runners that think they have what it takes to survive out there. You really should have stayed on as a partner of mine, we would’ve made good wingmates, you and I,” Jason told him confidently as he drank down another thimble.

“As I recall, we were ‘wingmates’ for several years.” Michael reminded him.

“Yeah...I still don’t see what you thought you’d be getting by joining the Astro-Mining Company –”

“Corporation.”

“Uh, whatever. Anyhow, I have a blast even on an escort mission. Those civilians are crammed in all nice and tight, relyin’ on their escort only (which would be me). Most often, all I see is a bunch of cocky freebooters tryin’ to steal my escort. They’re all the same: they pull a diagonal approach from a planetary radar shadow, try to nail me in the back with homing missiles. Too easy! I put on full reverse thrust and scramble ‘em with ECMs. Boom! Ace in the hole, I smash those little –”

Ellison interrupted him with a stifled chuckle. “Okay, I believe you, man – you’re a pilot for sure.”

Kain glared at him, then shrugged. “Well, I see you’re as snazzy a dresser as the last we met. What’ve you been up to, ‘Mad?”

Michael poured himself another drink. “What else? Fragging asteroids as usual. So far, I’ve survived about two dozen sorties in separate fields. Last was Celeste, before that was the Exile System.”

“Haven’t gained their confidence yet, huh? Those missions must have been pretty interesting. From what I hear the casualty rate is about one in ten for every pilot that flies in either of those fields. Quite a hotshot, are we?” Kain teased.

“Actually,” Ellison replied with a grin, “I just got an assignment to Sigma Delta. Maybe you can be playing cards on Ellison’s Moon next year. Ha!”

Kain shrugged, defeated, and gulped down another Three Star Smash. “Lucky.”

- - -

“Good day, Sir,” the technician nodded at Ellison from the door, “Hope to see you around Mintaka again sometime.”

He saluted towards Ellison, who only rolled his eyes and climbed up the ladder to his fighter. It looked all shiny and new, scrubbed down with cleansers and tweaked back into efficiency – barely. The canopy lowered itself into position and snapped shut, while the ventral pod thrusters engaged and kept the Dagger hovering a few feet off of the deck. With a gut-wrenching squeal, the overhead landing pad doors irised back open.

Michael didn’t waste any time. He had his helmet on and was buckling the last of his belts when any atmosphere left in the landing compartment whooshed into the void. He clicked the ventral pods into a 45° angle and put them to work. In a fraction of a second his ship was in a vertical orientation and ready to fly. Timing was crucial at this moment, but it was second nature to the career pilot by now. The main thrusters roared from the rear compartment, sending the Dagger hurtling into space.

He waited until he was a decent distance from the outpost before he brought the ship around to take in sensor data. A flick of a wrist and the Aural Simulation Mechanism was warming up. It emitted a high-pitched whine, a noise like a watery gurgle, played a sequence of musical notes, and in an accented voice said: “ASM on-line. Calibrations in progress.”

The noise continued while the sensors scanned around and got in-tune with the space around the ship. It usually took a few minutes for the ASM to synchronize with whatever region of space Michael happened to be in, but when he came out of hyperspace the aural synthesizers were a great help in asteroid blasting. Especially in a dense region.

He didn’t know exactly how the things were supposed to work, all he knew was that they’d been invented for this specific purpose at first, then sold for a hefty price to other aviators. It had something to do with telltale signals that most spatial objects emitted. Those signals were collected by the scanner array, fed into the synthesizers, and “translated” into an approximation of what that might sound like to the human ear.

Asteroids sent out a wide variety of distinguishable signals. Lumbering, moderately sized ‘roids put out a flub-flub-flub sound, tumbling end-over-end through space. Fireball comets sounded like a ship entering an atmosphere – a fiery burning noise. The crystal rocks grew back extremely well in a vacuum – while crystal formations in the best planetary conditions could take weeks to germinate, the lack of air could spawn massive explosions of regrowth in a matter of seconds. Some said it made a screech like metal-on-metal when they regenerated, almost like a sword blade being drawn from the sheath.

The aural device was essential in completion of any mission in an asteroid belt. In total silence, survival rates were much lower. Sensors were good – the Terran species was long called a primarily visual race – but in the time it took to glance at a readout, ships were destroyed by comets traveling ten percent of light speed, crunched by interstellar debris, and vaporized by Alien weapons. To not have access to the ASM was almost guaranteeing death for a pilot.

Finally, the system finished its sweep and registered as calibrated. There were a few more checks he had to make before engaging the hyperdrive. He flipped the Auto-Shield button, giving the computer control of the proximity sensors. It would engage the Auto-Shield if a slow-moving object got within a few meters of the ship. It was useless against Alien laserfire and any other kind of asteroid because of the high rate of speed. The Auto-Shield was a feature, not a required component of the Dagger, and so it was extremely weak.

This done, he performed maintenance on the main gun. He could see it out of the cockpit window, aimed and ready to fire. The chamber rotated constantly with a combination of hiss and hum that barely came through the ASM.

Everything seemed to be in order. He brought up the hyperspace navigation map, a mesh of squiggly lines and multi-colored blobs. The computer kicked itself for several seconds, then drew a crude visual interface over the map. Michael scrolled the map and resized it to get a better view of the surrounding space. He could see constellations forming as he drew back. The third star in Orion’s Belt glowed red, indicating his current location. He located Sigma Delta, a system almost in the exact center of the charts. Right along a main shipping and commuting route. No wonder GAMDC wanted it cleaned.

He selected Sigma Delta after a few frustrating tries, and the computer replied and shut-off the navmap, glad to be rid of it.

The hyperdrive was prepped. He had enough fuel for the jump and a lot of spare left over. Perfect. He fed the drives a bit more juice to make certain he would achieve the spatial threshold and engaged his thrusters. The G-forces were incredible as he felt the weight pressing against him. These were the heavy duty engines, max afterburner power. He lifted a hand, fought against an invisible foe, and lowered the hyperspace lever.

The ASM went mad, along with the gyros. Just as he thought he would be crunched into his seat by the force of the drive, the tiny Dagger fighter “diffused” into hyperspace. Almost as if he were being led through a tunnel tied to a leash, the hyperspace canal whipped the tiny ship through a series of invisible twists and turns. At this point, Ellison could look out the viewport and see billions upon billions of spatial phenomena. Nebulae, supernovae, planets, stars, even a few galaxies. It was all lumped together in what could be called a ‘small’ area by a map maker.

It was going to be a long ride. Eight hours in the most uneventful space known to the human mind. He’d be on the verge of going out of his skull when the ship would diffuse back into normal space, on the edge of the Sigma Delta System. Until then, he was completely cut off from civilization and completely unreachable.

- - -

Slamcraack! The asteroid blew apart with an audible blast. Michael yanked the stick to the left. The maneuvering jet kicked in and the Dagger banked hard left. Thrusters roared to life just in time to avoid the fiery debris, in the form of several smaller pieces of the asteroid.

Ellison fired the main gun several times in rapid succession, destroying most of the chunks of rock. He moved on through the field, felt a slight but painful bump and the sound of the Auto-Shield absorbing a shock. He gauged his situation. Five armor levels still relatively intact and about 30 shields. Bad.

There were swarms of the ‘roids around the tiny ship and he had no real escape vector if things got too hot. The nearest asteroid-based refueling station was a few thousand kilometers out, and without a way to get there except by blasting all the rocks, it could take him very close to his fuel limit. He only had about two hours worth left in the tanks.

He happened to look at the dash just as the ASM went berserk. The readings jumped and he was getting sporadic readings from a spot in the field not too far from his current position.

“Computer, log entry.” The panel chirped in response after a few long seconds of delay. Ellison spoke: “This is Ellison, Day 21: Running low on fuel in Quadrant C2. I’ve detected anomalous readings from an unvisited area and have decided to take a look. Log end.”

- - -

The Dagger roared through the region, firing green laser bolts at the more threatening asteroids. They split apart in the ship’s wake, forming comets that flew wildly away from the force exerted by the gun.

Michael arrived at the coordinates indicated by the sensors and took a look around. He squinted and gazed out the viewport. There, right in the middle of this densely packed part of the belt, was a cleared path. The rubble was almost vaporized by something. All Ellison could see were little pieces of inactive asteroid dust that still floated around. The path showed signs of having been cleared quite recently, and it almost looked like they’d tried to cover it up. It was a poor attempt at it, however – as near as Mike could tell, small ship-to-ship fighters like the Dagger had been deployed as covering fire for a larger vessel or convoy of vessels, pushing spare asteroids into the path with a mass accelerator cannon.

It was simple: the large ship plotted a course through the rocks, went out front and fragged the asteroids with its laser batteries. Once the large ship had passed safely through the field, the fighters were fitted with the mass accelerator cannon, an energy weapon that fired bolts of concentrated mass. The bolts had no substance, really, they were just densely packed balls of random particles. They did almost no harm to anything they hit, merely pushing the object they were aimed at along at a steady pace. The number of fighters needed to cover the area in question was colossal, probably at least a squad of a dozen to be sure it could be done in a reasonable amount of time. Otherwise such an operation could take days, weeks, even. This poorly covered trail looked fresh.

Their plan had been very basic, and so it had failed very easily. The mass accelerators would have to be used in conjunction to work very effectively – two fighters to cover every rock they wanted to move. Otherwise the asteroids would just drift from one side of the cleared path to the other from the momentum. Whoever’s handiwork this was, they couldn’t have done much better, despite the poor quality of their work. Stealth was all about not being seen, which meant absolute silence, moving quickly, and touching nothing. Here, the latter was unavoidable, as a full complement of fighters probably wouldn’t even have come close to finishing the job neatly.

Ellison wanted to be sure of one thing. He flew up along the Y axis, staying far clear of the path through the rocks, and armed the main gun, setting it for a high-power disruption burst. He pulled the trigger on the joystick. The green bolt sped away at near light-speed, past all of the asteroids and into the path. With a giant explosion that rocked the Dagger even at its current position, the path ignited itself in a tremendous eruption of blue plasma, the leftover fuel from a ship’s engines. Now he was certain. Someone had been here very recently to produce a reaction like that.

Michael headed for the nearest outpost, a station marked as being stockpiled with experimental weaponry.

- - -

A few orbital passes around the asteroid gave Michael enough time to ready the ship for a landing approach. He located the tunnel, a wide, circular open spot with dark hull plates covering its innards. The ship flew lightly down the corridor, lit only by narrow strips of red lighting that were plated onto the walls. The tunnel widened and Ellison barely tapped the jets every now and then to produce a coasting effect.

He arrived inside the sparse, dimly lit chamber a few seconds later, spun the bulk of the Dagger around to face the closing door, and extended the landing gear. Nothing about the landing system was automated, except for the door, which was equipped with a simple proximity detector rigged to go off when a ship passed through.

He waited a few minutes, until the red light indicating air levels blinked to green. He popped the canopy and slid down the ladder.

The room was dark and lit only by floor lights that ran off of a very small reserve of power. Painted onto the far wall in broad yellow letters was the number 01, the docking bay. Michael stood under the wing of his ship, whose engines were in the cooldown process. He was in the middle of the lower level of the room. On one side a metal staircase led up to the higher level, where a control booth and a manifest panel awaited him. First, however, Ellison went over to the wall and took out the fuel hose, hooking it up to the starboard tank on the Dagger. He did the same with the port-side fuel tank and flipped a switch on the wall. The rush of a liquid going through the hoses filled his ears. Machinery, gears and other things needed for the pumping of the fuel, rumbled in the walls as a wall-mounted digital marker visually displayed the refueling process measurements.

With that taken care of, Ellison made a quick survey of the room. Looking up, he saw a catwalk going around the wall on one of the upper levels. A tunnel was cut straight up through the asteroid, stretching into infinity. Indeed, very different from any other base he’d been in. Usually the power wasn’t even spared to keep any lights on at all, until he stumbled blindly up the stairs and turned them on in the control booth.

When Ellison got into the control room of this outpost, he took a look at the panels. He switched on some overhead lights, reaching for just the right spot on the panel. The room lit up and Michael began looking for a certain something on the cargo manifest.

The thing was the strangest contraption he had ever seen in his life. Made up of a network of pipes and at least a dozen barrels, it sat leaning up against the wall along with several cargo crates and other pieces of weaponry.

The MW-232X Armageddon Cannon System sat there, waiting to be installed on the Dagger. Michael let out a long whistle and walked over to the thing, kicked it lightly with a boot. Rather than an almost offensive clank, the cannon system let out a long, echoing, musical note.

The official line, according to the outpost’s logs, was:

MW-232X Armageddon Cannon System: Designed for emergency use only, in close quarters and in intense situations in conflict with Alien vessels. When activated, the ship equipped with the Armageddon will begin to spin quickly. During this rapid spinning motion, the emitter system will discharge a series of shockwaves that will travel a radius of approximately four-hundred meters. Any objects in this region will be obliterated or take significant damage. Take caution that the tremendous drain on energy will render other weapons momentarily inactive in order to recharge.

Quite an interesting prospect, that. Michael noted the heavy lifter sitting over in the corner. It was equipped with four lifter arms, precise tools and other gadgetry, and loads of torque. Perfectly designed for the various operations Ellison had in mind. Designated the ‘Vulcan’ lifter, its bubble canopy was accessible from a ladder that started underneath the thing and went up to its head.

Michael grinned at how ridiculous he’d look and crawled up the ladder. The docking bay was several hundred meters away, and he had several trips ahead. Not only did he plan to install the Armageddon, but to load mines, homing missiles, and a plasma drill, a tool frequently used by GAMDC to carve mining bases out of asteroids such as this one. Oh, how fun this would be. After this, he hoped he’d run into the Aliens.

- - -

Several trips and several hours later, the Dagger fighter looked like a Swiss army knife with the Armageddon affixed to its belly. It was considerably more powerful now, and could probably face a military ship one on one and have more than a fifty-fifty chance of winning a duel.

Take-off was smoother than usual – he’d tweaked the maneuvering jets before exiting the outpost.

Somehow, Ellison’s primary mission didn’t seem to matter all that much anymore. He had to find the destroyer of the asteroids, the convoy that covertly smashed its way through the rocks.

It was about three hours into the mission. Ellison was headed for Quadrant D1, the grid section nearest to the ‘path’ he’d found earlier. The aural synthesizers were on-line, the weapons readied. He was ready for almost anything, but found only asteroids in surprising abundance.

That, and leftover plasma from stardrives, in surprising abundance.

Nomad clicked the safties on the main gun. If he ruptured a field of the drive plasma...

Khaaauuurrrrhhhh...

Ellison shivered at the noise that came through his headset. The ASM had started an analysis, saying plainly on a readout: Unknown Signal, Analysis in Progress.

He didn’t need to know what it was. The rumble of an engine signaled the approach of a one-man fighter. Phrrrrrrdddkk! Phrrrrrrdddkk!

Standard alien gunfire. Ellison hit the thrusters hard, banked right and spun to face his attacker. A Super Saucer, spinning rapidly and making an attempt at targeting. Its systems were much harder to evade than the Standard Saucer’s, its shots well placed and effectively deadly. It fired again, a spherical beam of red energy tearing away from its launcher.

Ellison hit the shields. A screen of blue-gray energy flew up from the various emitters on the Dagger’s hull, blocking the discharge of Alien energy. It slammed into the shields, dissipating with a crackling buzz. Ellison put the main gun into action. Most of his shots were wild and flew uselessly away. Those that did hit only produced a sort of grinding sound, like someone trudging through a gravel walk.

Tseeew! Tseeew! Ellison fired again. The shots impacted, blowing a visible hole through the Saucer’s hull. The thing kept coming, lined up for another shot. It banked away and fired as it did so. They liked to keep a safe distance, as their weapons worked better from long range, spiraling in rather than flying straight. It was caused by the constant rotation of the Saucer, which twirled off, almost out of range of the Dagger’s gun.

He attempted to evade the shot this time rather than wasting more shield power; it caught him in the wing, shattering a pylon that led to the fuel tank. Ellison panicked, scrambling with the controls. The damage was repairable, and thankfully wasn’t enough to produce a volatile reaction within the hyperdrive, which would have been very bad.

His wing sparkled with orange-white fumes, superheated plasma from the tank that was leaking. He’d patch it later, as the Saucer wasn’t yet eliminated. Ellison lined up and let fly several gunshots, aiming not for the Alien, but the space just beneath it. The pocket of drive plasma erupted, vaporizing the Saucer.

The next ten minutes were spent recovering from that close proximity blast and repairing the hole in his starboard tank. His flight efficiency had been reduced to about sixty percent and the hyperdrive was malfunctioning. Not good at all.

It still bothered him about what the strange sound was. It had come before the rumble of engines, almost an angry whimper. Perhaps Sigma Delta was more than GAMDC had thought it to be.

The huge roar from Quadrant E6 caught him off guard. Slowly, Michael Ellison raised his gaze to look. There, coasting through the asteroids and surrounded by swarms of Super Saucers and other miscellaneous ships, was an Alien star cruiser.

Rarely seen, even more rarely destroyed by even the most competent of the military, they were nearly invincible to a fighter, and made a Dagger’s high-powered, asteroid incinerating main gun seem like a pea shooter. Michael made a tactical retreat to another quadrant, waiting from above. His engines sputtered as he did this, but they didn’t seem to detect him in the patch of asteroids he’d chosen as a hiding spot.

As he watched, the cruiser sent out a wing of Asteroid Tugs, their magnetic rotation strips flying out ahead of them for a collection procedure. Now Ellison understood. The tugs vectored in on the sight of his battle with the Saucer, the rotation strips acting as tractors for something other than asteroids. Eggs.

The tugs collected them in one swift sweep, a collection of almost two, maybe three dozen Alien hatchlings about to spring forth from their eggs. There was a major enemy presence in this solar system. Command had to be notified. In fact, this was no place for any GAMDC pilot. He needed military assistance. Now.

The tugs slowly chugged back to the launch bays, and as soon as it had appeared, the cruiser was off at almost half the speed of light, using a breed of kamikaze creatures, likely a subspecies of the Aliens themselves, to eliminate asteroids on a collision course with the ship.

No sooner had it left than Michael was puzzled again.

Amidst a torrent of cacophonous static came a distant cry: “This is the starship Manhattan, we are under attack...lien vessels...damaged...need assistance immediately...repeat, this is the starship Manhattan, we are in distress and need immediate assistance. Mayday, mayday, this is the Manhattan...”

- - -

Michael checked his gauges very carefully before he proceeded. He didn’t need a malfunction in a dogfight with the Aliens. He’d only been here a month and had already experienced more combat with the extraterrestrials than a Fleet pilot might in half a dozen sorties.

He arrived on the scene a few minutes later. The Manhattan was in the middle of Quadrant G2, being pounded hard by Alien guns. It was fighting back with surprising ferocity, using its dual laser cannons to knock one, then another Saucer out of the sky. Rather than firing wildly at anything that moved, her gunners committed to one target, destroyed it, and moved on. It was far more efficient than the panicky, hurried, shoot-at-whatever-you-can style of many transport gunners.

And that’s what Manhattan was. A transport ship. Long and flat bellied, bundled up in more inches of titanium alloy armor plates than Ellison could count, and a prime target for anything that happened along. It may have made sense to be out here should this system have really been a main shipping route for cargo vessels, but it wasn’t yet, not until Michael cleared it.

“Transport Manhattan, this is Michael Ellison of the Astro-Mining Corporation, what is your current situation?” he asked hurriedly, hoping that the Aliens were listening in, and that they’d pick another target.

“Situation? Situation is extremely hostile, Mister Ellison, we are in need of assistance. Hull integrity is down to the forty percent range. You’d better pack your gear and get down here – get these buggers off of us now!” the angry feminine voice of the pilot screamed at him.

“Oh, yes ma’am,” Ellison chirped mockingly back at her.

The battle was in full swing in the next ten seconds. Full thrusters and a whole lot of weaving through the rocks got Michael there in time to salvage the ship. They were trailing their cargo and there were numerous ruptures along the hull, but they appeared in good shape, otherwise.

“Here to assist. Attacking now.”

He fragmented one of them as soon as he arrived, catching the Aliens off guard with a few wild salvos of gunfire. They came at him viciously, a contingent of Super Saucers and a Crystal Ice Ship. The ice ship broke off from its heavy bombardment of the transport to attack Ellison.

The ice ship lined up and fired a cold plasma bolt. Michael banked to the side, barely avoiding the shot. He couldn’t let the bolts touch him; his systems would freeze and give them enough time to destroy him. Raising the shields, he rammed a Saucer with the Dagger’s nose, splitting it down the middle and blowing it apart. The Manhattan laid down cover fire, blowing another Saucer away.

There were two Saucers left, plus the Crystal Ice Ship. The transport took one of the Saucers and kept firing until it was down. A plasma bolt struck the Dagger full in the face. Everything went out. Lights, engines, weapons, everything.

“Mayday! Mayday! Am in distress! This is Ellison, under attack!” he shouted into his headset, hoping something might hear him. It was doubtful. Very doubtful.

Impossible.

The Ice Ship fired again, cracking the titanium armor on his vessel. One more shot would finish the fighter off. He shivered and awaited death.

Tseeew! Tseeew!

Terran ships! There were other Terran ships in the system! A Rapier, a fighter of military construct, decloaked behind the Crystal Ice Ship and blew it apart with a well placed homing missile.

“Glad to see me, ‘Mad?” a familiar voice asked as the Dagger’s systems began to thaw.

“Jason! What are you doing here?” Michael yelled. “And what the hell are you doing flying a Rapier?”

Kain chuckled over the radio link-up. “I believe I’m saving your hind end from freezer burn...what are you doing responding to distress signals? And you should call me ‘Sir’, as well.”

- - -

“It’s quite simple, really. My funds were so low I could count them on my fingers. Jobs were sparse. They still are. No one needs a decent assassin anymore, Mike. I was out of work, so I turned to the only option I had left. Federal service.” Kain explained. He was dressed in a blue tunic and a black beret and was aiming a blaster at Ellison.

They stood on the deck of the Poseidon, a Terran destroyer on a mission. The explanation had been too long for Michael to remember everything. It was just too hard to believe. He didn’t realize he’d said it out loud until a deep, gravelly, and ever-irritating voice chimed in, slurred heavily with Downspin accent.

“Believe it, Captain Ellison. I’m ‘fraid you and your friends out there on the Manhattan were our worms. They’ve been fishin’ us too long, son, we’re gonna start reelin’ them in.”

Harlow stepped into the fighter bay as the two were talking. “That won’t be necessary, Major Kain. I’m sure your friend is as eager to get this over with as we are. He won’t try anythang...” Harlow glanced pointedly at Ellison, a thick cigar clenched between his teeth, “...at least, if he values his life...”

“Right, Admiral.” Kain replied, holstering the blaster.

Harlow walked down to the two old friends and pointed to a wall display. “You see, Captain, the Aliens are attracted to heat. The engines of that transport put out enough drive plasma to ignite twenty kilometers of this God-forsaken asteroid belt. And you...you, Captain, have done us a great service. We never expected Manhattan back. Not only did you save the Manhattan, but your actions have helped us greatly in the upcoming conflict –”

“Conflict? We’re going to fight them?” Ellison interrupted incredulously.

“Yes, that was the plan we had in mind. War isn’t a game, Captain, and –”

“Game? No, it’s not a game, Harlow, but if it were you are being a fool. You’ve saved your queen but you’re letting all your other pieces go to ruin. Soon it’ll be a checkmate, Admiral. That Alien cruiser could wipe us out without a second thought. You’re insane to even be in this system.” Michael screamed at him.

“I assure you, I have the enemy cornered. We’re ready to move, and let me tell you straight: there is enough combined firepower in this ship’s fighter complement and main guns to wipe out a whole fleet of those extraterrestrials, so don’t you get worried now.” Harlow replied coolly. He didn’t seem to be understanding his peril. Either that, or he actually expected Ellison to believe that the Poseidon could take the cruiser on, one on one, and win. Actually believed it with his heart. An ancient aphorism involving a certain oxymoron crossed Ellison’s mind.

“You have to listen to me, Harlow –”

“I don’t have to listen to anything I don’t want to, Ellison. I’m an Admiral.” Harlow turned to Kain. “Take him to his quarters.”

- - -

The escape was made hastily and without regret. Ellison sped away in his heavily damaged Dagger, flying as fast and as far as he could. The Aliens were right on top of them, and he had to get away. There was no chance of survival. The cruiser could spear the Poseidon through the side and think nothing of it. In any case, it was the only vessel Ellison had ever seen absorb hundreds of, let alone one, direct asteroid hit and continue without so much as a quiver. That wasn’t even taking into account the thing’s weapons...

Their plan was flawed. They had made a poor sweep of the system, a poor covert move through the asteroids, and a very poor choice to use Ellison as their puppet.

“Hey... where do you think you’re going, Captain?” Kain’s voice came in over Michael’s headset. The Rapier engaged its thrust and flew after him, gunning down rocks with ease.

“Away, Jason. Why’d you do this to me? I always thought you actually had a sense of right and wrong. Even when you were a bounty hunter. But you really don’t have any morals, do you? Friends are just another expendable commodity. Just like the next military pilot...”

Kain laughed, almost mockingly. “So sad, so sad. Where’s the galaxy’s tiniest violin? Think, man! There aren’t any paying jobs left in this Galaxy! If you were smart you would’ve joined up. This operation was planned to destroy most of the Aliens in one stroke. A hyperactive explosion from an Alien cruiser would throw them all out of whack. Those things carry breeders! We could smack them into submission in weeks. It’ll happen. But you won’t be a part of it, ‘Mad – ‘cause you’re gonna die.”

Green bolts missed Michael’s ship as it hurtled precariously through a dense cluster of asteroids. He flipped the Dagger over to face Kain’s Rapier and touched the thrusters to slow his momentum. Ellison’s shields were recharged, so he used them extensively. It was a festival among the rocks, with he and Jason facing off, each with a deep hatred for the other.

Jason used the Rapier’s twin guns and fired homing missiles like a madman, but he kept it fair and wasn’t using the cloaking device his ship had onboard.

Still, he was going to win. The Rapier was superior in almost every way – armoring, shields, and it could turn on a dime. Another rupture went down the hull as Michael’s shields lost their remaining power to the Rapier’s guns. Kain chucked and spun his ship around for the final pass.

“You never could outclass me, ‘Mad. See you around...”

Michael grinned as the Rapier closed in for the kill. “Outclass this, punk.”

Ellison engaged the Armageddon. The shockwaves tore the Rapier to pieces, its hyperdrive going volatile and vaporizing several hundred meters of the surrounding asteroids. Ellison’s ship was caught in the blast, tumbling end over end through space. All went dark except for the blaze of multi-colored fire just beginning to rage in the distance.

Harlow’s plan failed miserably, as expected. Poseidon went up like a fireball comet. Michael repaired his ship at one of the outposts and headed away, far away. When the feds found out their slipshod ploy for xenocide had failed, they’d be on the lookout for him. Or perhaps not. They could assume that he’d been killed in the blast, but most of the time they took no chances. If anyone from civilization could find him in the next few years...well, the prospects weren’t exactly bright.

He’d head for the out-lying colonies, maybe buy some land on an agro-world. Maybe do some loathesome escort duty. Maybe get into the trading market. Perhaps, one day, enact revenge.

In any case, it would be good to get back on terra firma.

- - -

AUTHOR'S NOTES

"WTF IS THIS! ALMOST 9000 WORDS ABOUT A 2D SPACESHIP SHOOTING BLOBS ON THE SCREEN WHERE DID YOU HIT UR HEAD STUPID. U MUST HAV LOTS UV TIME ON UR HANDS TO DO THAT. U PROBABLY LIVE IN A 1 ROOM APARTMENT WITH A COMPUTER AND A BED IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. IM MEAN REALLY... ASTEROIDS MY ASS" - BerserkRage's friend whom he showed FF.N to

Actually, at the time of Festival's creation, I was living in my parents' house attending junior high school. So if the quality is not quite up to par with what would normally be expected, you have my sincerest apologies. I only "wasted" about two days writing it, although the second day was pretty much a 6pm to midnight affair trying to meet my deadline for English class, if memory serves.

Indeed, some of the dialogue is iffy, and the ending, I will admit, could be classified as a "choppy bummer." I won't be modifying Festival, but if anyone is interested in seeing where else I can take the plot line and universe started here, check out Asteroids: Where the Stone Falls.

Further comments or criticism are always welcome, here or directed to my email... but I don't speak French, so no more French language Simpsons fanfiction, if that's quite all right with you all...

ALSO: If you liked this story, please DO NOT REPRODUCE IT ELSEWHERE WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. Please feel free to link to it here on or refer others to it if you wish, but I do not enjoyfinding my work posted up on random message boards by someone I've never met simply by Googling my name. If not plagiarism, it's at least rude, and very unappreciated.