--------------------
Chapter 2 - The Game
"Too much for me too much for you,
you're gonna lose in time,
every turn looking for a burn,
some never live and learn". Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
'Christ! Let's get the hell away from her!' Piotr muttered to himself as he pushed the throttle to its stop and realigned his ship's course directly for the gate.
Slowly the lifter began to accelerate and pull away from the Piranha, which was still having to deal with the quickly diminishing cloud of Piotr's drones. Piotr wished now that he'd paid for a ship boost extension, it would have allowed him to reach the Lifter's top speed of 98 m/s so much more quickly. He mentally kicked himself for not paying the measly 1200 credits the equipment dock had required.
"Computer, ETA to reaching the gate ahead?". As he spoke Piotr was relieved to see his shield strength slowly climb past 60%.
"ETA to gate, 1 minute" announced the ship computer.
With one hand clutching the flight stick and the other still pushing against the throttle (which was already at its stop) Piotr desperately hoped he would make it in time. His drones had nearly been wiped out, only 4 remained, but they'd done their job of holding the Piranha at bay even though the hostile ship's shields showed as practically undamaged from the puny firepower of the drones.
----------
"Hey cargo boy! You think you can escape?" this time Piotr thought he detected a note of disappointment in the other pilot's voice.
Piotr glanced at the HUD and saw that the Piranha pilot was now ignoring the remaining drones to reach him before he entered the gate.
"Look, I don't know who you are or why you wanted to kill my uncle. I'm just a cargo hauler, please, leave me alone!" Piotr replied over the comm. Still 2 km to go.
"Poor little cargo boy!", the voice was sarcastic, "running to Argon Prime to get away from little old me!"
"Yeah I'm running! Leave me alone you psycho!" Piotr shouted back over the comm.
The comm was silent for a moment. Piotr glanced at the HUD and saw with surprise that the Piranha had slowed to a stop.
"So cargo boy, you like running away do you? Well I tell you what. You and me, we're going to play a little game!". This time the woman's voice was strangely cheerful.
Piotr didn't reply and was so happy to see the gate was only 1 kilometre away that he really didn't care.
"You can run, but you can't hide!" laughed the woman's voice, "a cliche I know, but I'm going to have some fun with you".
The voice over the comm paused, almost as if the pilot was thinking hard. "Since you like Argon Prime so much, I'm going to call this game 'Prime Numbers'", crazy laughter folowed this bizarre statement, "the first prime number is 2 - So we will meet again in 2 months. Maybe then you will offer more of a challenge!"
"I don't think so, you nutter! I'm reporting you to the authorities, pilot of the Boron Piranha BM3RH-36", Piotr read the ship ID tag off his HUD, "you're going to be in big trouble!"
Just before Piotr's Lifter entered the gate some more laughter came through on his comm, "2 months cargo boy! You're safe till then! Don't forget me!". The woman's voice faded as the gate activated and once again the Lifter's cockpit filled with light from the shimmering energy patterns of the warp tunnel.
---------
When Piotr came out from the other side of the warp tunnel he was relieved to find himself back in Argon Prime in one piece. Quickly he throttled to maximum speed and searched the ship sector Navmap as the Lifter began to gather momentum.
'There it is!', Piotr found what he'd been looking for - the Argon Titan Destroyer that patrolled this sector. He set a course to intersect the Titan's route near the south gate.
When the Titan was in range Piotr slowed to a stop and hailed it over the comm.
"Argon Titan! This is cargo hauler Piotr Vladovitch. I would like to report an attack upon my ship in sector Ringo Moon".
"Argon Lifter AM4PK-12 this is Argon Titan pilot Val Fosty. This channel is for military use only. Make your report to sector security on the trading station. Over". The comm clicked as the Titan pilot closed the channel.
Piotr blinked, 'well, that was helpful!' he thought to himself.
"Ship scanned!" announced the Lifter computer.
"Huh? What?" Piotr said aloud. Then he saw on the HUD that an Argon Buster escorting the Titan had broken off its patrol pattern and was approaching his Lifter at high speed.
"Argon Lifter, your ship has been scanned for illegal cargo. Scans indicate you are clean. Now leave the area! We are conducting manouvers!"
"eermm, ok! Sorry!" Piotr mumbled as he increased speed and turned the Lifter around.
------------
Before heading to the trading station in the centre of Argon Prime Piotr made a stop at the 1 Mw Shield Production Facility in the sector. He wanted to drop off his cargo before someone beat him to it.
Piotr's friend, Fredic, had been right! Piotr had bought the ore at the rock bottom price (Piotr smiled at the pun) of 100 credits per unit in Ringo Moon and managed to sell them to the shield facility trader for 123 credits per unit. A very tasty profit of 23,000 credits! It looked like the delay caused by the attack by that crazy pilot had actually caused the price to climb as the factory ore resources were gradually used up.
'Well, a silver lining to every cloud I guess' Piotr mused as he pondered the attack.
'Was she really serious about attacking me again in two months time?'. Piotr couln't believe such a crazy threat, yet the pilot had nearly killed him for no apparent reason. Incredible as it seemed, Piotr decided he had to take the threat seriously. With this in mind, after leaving the Shield Production Facility, he laid in a course for the trading station to make a report to the authorities.
--------------
Three hours later Piotr was sat in a bar on the trading station looking morosely at the drink in his hand.
The sector security official had kept him waiting in an ante-room for an hour before finally calling Piotr in to make his report. After Piotr had finished his story the official had been spectacularly unhelpful.
"OK, I'll enter your report to the database and add the Piranha ID tag to the list of suspected criminals, but don't get your hopes up. The ID is probably a fake - the pilot will most likely change it at a pirate base and we will be unable to trace him".
"Her, it was a female voice over the comm!", Piotr grimaced, the guy wasn't even listening.
The official sighed, "look, you're pretty green at this aren't you? Criminals don't go speaking over the comm with their real voice - the voice you heard is almost certainly not that of the pilot's!".
"So what do I do?" Piotr was at a loss, how was he to sort this out?
The official sat back and looked pensively at Piotr.
"The way I see it you have three choices. You can change your ship and hope the pilot hasn't already traced your ship's ID and your voice back to you - which is unlikely. You can sell your ship and your business and never go out into space again. Or, you can try and get some decent defenses in place."
The official paused upon seeing Piotr's glum expression, and then said, not unkindly, "look kid, space is not a very safe place and if you want to fly around in it you're going to have to learn how to take care of yourself".
After thanking the official for his time Piotr had headed off to find a bar.
