Part 2

His name was Gavin Nohr and at eighteen, he hated his lot in life. All he ever wanted to be was an armor driver, one of the guys who fight the good fight. But his reflexes were not up to speed and he had drawn a sensor tech slot on a ship. At least the ship was going to one of the new 'Cruisers. Just before boarding the shuttle that would have taken him up to the Battle Cruiser Adam's Vengeance, he was given orders diverting him to a stinking Corvette.

Gavin sat at his post aboard the Harrier. He sulked while watching the scope for anything other than the salvage/recovery barge Z29XM, known to her crew as the Albatross, and the Harrier's sister ship, the Peregrine. Seeing nothing he continued his sulking and daydreaming.

Bits of radio chatter filtered into his reverie. "Peregrine, Albatross, system checks green, we're standing by for your mark." "Copy 'Tross, await order to jump." "Harrier, Peregrine, report." "Harrier's a go." "Copy. All ships, prepare to jump on my mark. Five, four..."

Aboard the Harrier, the loud speaker crackled to life, "Stand by for FTL jump." The order was echoed on the Albatross, though not as formally, "Ya' ll hang on t' yore asses." Engineers had such a hard life.

".two, one, MARK!" The two Corvettes jumped, followed closely by the barge. Upon arrival the Corvettes started scanning for hostiles while maneuvering to cover the planet and the barge. The Albatross scanned for, and acquired, the beacon from the Battle Cruiser Fury Unleashed, which had gone missing in this sector three days ago.

Gavin's mood sank further as his scope began tracking a million targets. He started dialing out all debris from what appeared to be a destroyed Cruiser. This left one contact that disappeared a moment later. He pressed a button at his station and spoke, "Con, Sensors, I'm picking up interference from who knows where. Permission to launch probes." "Granted," came the reply.

He quickly programmed three probes with target coordinates and course plots. He launched all three at once after he was done; one headed for the surface of this little planet, and the other two headed for high orbit above the poles. After a few moments data started coming in that allowed him adjust his equipment. He also noticed the make up of the planet they orbited.

Finding a bit of mirth in the information provided by the probe on the planet, he relayed the info to his captain. "Con, Sensors. Um, take down our current coordinates and send them back to base. We've just found Slayer 's ass. This place is a hole!"

The captain was a patient man, but specialist Nohr was getting on his nerves. His rebuke was as swift as it was painful. Gavin shut up and kept his attention on his scope and the data provided by the probes. He entertained himself with thoughts of stuffing the captain, and everyone else on this ship that hated him, into an airlock and cycling it. **Fuck you Cap 'n. I should've been a Sarge driver. Goddamn placement officer. He's probably in on it as well. They'll all get theirs some day.**

"This is the Albatross. We're onsite with what's left of the Fury Unleashed. Not sure what to make of it, but it looks like this thing's been eaten."

"Albatross, Peregrine. Is salvage possible?"

"We're picking up now. Recorders are running. I just got a really bad feeling about this."

"Continue salvage operation. As soon as that is complete, jump clear. Peregrine out."

A blip appeared on Gavin's scope again and disappeared as quickly. "Con, Sensors. I have an intermittent contact, dark side of the planet. Mark one, bearing 260 point 072." From his probe data he could tell that the captain was bringing the ship about to investigate.

"Sensors, Con. Explain."

"I'm focusing the scans from the probes to last known location of contact, max power. You've got as much as I do at the moment." He patted himself on the back, he had thought of that one all by himself. **This job's not so hard** he thought with a smug grin.

The captain had him by the front of his blouse and held three inches above the floor before Gavin even knew he was in trouble. "YOU FUCKING IDIOT!" screamed the captain. "YOU TRYING TO SPOOK HIM OR WHAT?"

"I.. I. I just-"

The captain dropped him and he landed in a heap on the floor. "Just didn't think, that's what you did. We got a hostile strong enough to take out the Fury, and you decide to light up space with big, neon 'We Know You're Here' sign. Pathetic!" The captain stormed from the sensor suite.

Gavin crawled into his chair like a puppy that had just been whacked with a data pad. He wanted to run to his quarters and hide. More importantly, he wanted to run to his quarters and change out of his soaked pants. He stayed in his chair and bore the disgusted looks from the other operators in the room.

"Peregrine, Harrier. Possible hostile in area. Moving to intercept."
"Copy Harrier. Moving to back up."

The two Corvettes moved around the planet, searching for the elusive contact that had surely been alerted by Gavin's blunder. They started circling in on the area of the contacts last known location, appearing very much like sharks drawn to blood.

Next

Comments / questions to "I. Enforcer"

More of I.Enforcers stuff

Back to Pandora