Starship Armstrong - Season 3

Part 21 - Mitzner's Card Game (VIII) (Mitzner's Story)

"Everyone else had to tell a real story, this is ridiculous," said McAfree. "You can't just let Chen get away with obvious nonsense!"

"Promises were made!" Takahashi chimed in.

"Were you two there? How do you know it didn't happen the way he said?" asked Mitzner. "We've dealt with rogue Magellans before."

"That are angsty teenagers?" asked McAfree.

"I assure you it was 100% true," said Chen.

"Oh whatever," said McAfree, crossing her arms.

"Give it a rest everyone. This is a happy night. Morale building," said Mitzner. "This is such a stupid thing to get worked up about."

"Why don't you just tell your story," said Solarin, "then we can focus on playing cards."

There was a general murmur of agreement.

"That sounds marvelous," said Mitzner. "I have a good one."

-Mitzner's Story-

I just want to apologize in advance for showing everyone up with my great story.

I'm sure most of you know I am personal friends with the Captain. Most people probably think we met when I came aboard the Armstrong as a fighter pilot during the Reunification War. That's not entirely accurate. We met one time before that.

Before I joined the Foundation I was a mercenary, and before that I was a pirate. Before that I was Foundation again but that get's complicated. This was when I was a pirate.

Our ship was called Queen Entropy's Revenge. It was a modified Babylonian Sulputum-raider that we stole from a less smart crew of pirates. It was badass. It was small and it wasn't going to beat anyone in a straight up fight but if we got into a straight up fight we had already lost.

We happened upon a deep space Foundation resupply station where there were no ships around, so we stole all the fuel and food we could carry, and then waited around for another ship with something actually worth taking showed up.

I know everyone here is Foundation but let me tell you there was no New Era back then this was the bad old days Foundation. If you want me to feel repentant about stealing from them I'm not. Try to construct a race of slave soldiers, get your fuel tooked. Law of space.

So my crew and I, and according to our Ship's Articles it was a democracy but for all intents and purposes I was Captain, catch one of those whaddaya call 'em, Raleigh Frigates emerging from a time/space tunnel-

"The Raleigh is a Corvette, you're probably thinking of the Erikson-class Frigate," said Wagner. "They look almost identical."

That's the one! Anyway. So it's an Erikson Frigate, which I now recall is correct. We all figure they must have stuff worth stealing so, you know, we commenced boarding action.

We just hit it with a gravity anchor and launched our boarding shuttles. They had front-mounted ion shears so they just punched right through the shields, this was before ion hardening so it was like popping a bubble.

So the shuttles punch straight through to the pressurized section nice and easy, and we're in.

"This you all take at face value, but my story was too outlandish?" asked Chen, incensed.

"Shush!" said Takahashi.

So I head straight to the bridge, and just as I'm coming down the hall towards it, guess who it is, Lieutenant-Commander Littlecrow comes walking down the other direction. She sees me first and starts to pull her gun but I'm way faster so we end up drawing at about the same time.

There we were both holding each other at gunpoint in the hall while the ship's alarms blared all around us. Then I told her to go back inside the bridge, call her crew, and tell them to surrender. And I'll never forget what she said next, and the conversation that followed.

"That will never happen," said Littlecrow.

"I will shoot you dead," I replied.

"Not if I shoot you first."

"I can survive an ion beam, can you?"

"I won't be intimidated by pirates."

"Straight to self righteousness I see. Who decides who is and isn't a pirate? The Foundation?"

"There are some fairly universal indicators. Loot and plunder for one."

"You don't even know what you're talking about. Trust me, everyone on my crew has very justified grievances with the Foundation."

"Does they justify your own violence?"

"I'm a genetically engineered soldier. Violent is how the Foundation made me."

"And what are you going to make yourself? It's not up to them anymore."

And then just like that she let her gun arm fall to her side. She gave up and gave me the draw on her.

"If you want to shoot me, shoot me. I will not surrender me ship under any circumstances."

And, you know, earlier that day I might have done just that. But instead I turned and left. I rounded everyone up, we grabbed a bunch of random nonsense to try and justify the raid to ourselves, and we got back into the shuttles and left.

We cheesed it out of there before any more Foundation ships showed up.

That was pretty much my last pirate raid. Give or take. Roughly.