Regret

A station floating in the golden rays of the nearby sun.

Two ships, glowing under the light. A Legion, and a Breacher. They eye each other warily. The Breacher moves in closer, locks the Legion.

A sudden burst of laser fire from the Legion. He engages!


The Breacher begins orbiting close while tracking disrupting. Rockets fly from the launchers and impact on the golden hull of the Legion, barely scratching it, but still the Breacher pilot presses on, hoping for a miracle. Lasers fly all around, some grazing his fragile ship, but most missing. He begins to imagine the glorious kill, a story to be retold throughout the universe. One tiny Breacher against the mighty Legion. David and Goliath...

A Corax lands on station. A neutral party.

Hope dims to a flicker in the Breacher pilot's chest, but maybe, just maybe... the Corax won't get involved.

Hope collapses as the Corax unleashes a flurry of missiles into the Breacher's limited armour plating, carving huge holes into the hull. In no time, the Breacher explodes, her potential gory lost.

A "gf" is offered in Local from the Corax. A spike of anger worms into the pilot's mind. That was a good fight?

No.

Furious, the capsuleer warps away in his pod, dreams snatched from his grasp, vowing to wreak vengeance on the Corax pilot for daring to intervene, for daring to sully the gloriousness that is a true "gf" with this soulless gank.

Returning to the station, he strides for his Thrasher, anger simmering, blood pumping.

The Thrasher undocks, guns spinning up as it barrels towards the Corax, now on its own, vulnerable. Both ships open fire at the same time, autocannon rounds flying past rockets in the void between them. Heat from the autocannons begins to damage their mountings, risking disabling the weapons entirely, but the capsuleer inside presses on regardless. Rage flows through the pilot, rising to a vicious joy as the shields of the Corax collapse, followed shortly by the armour, and then the hull.

An explosion.

The wrong had been righted.

But yet...

Hanging in space, was the fragile pod of the opposing pilot. The pilot who had sullied the name of true good fights everywhere. It made no move to escape. Fury arced through the Thrasher pilot once more, his guns letting off a final, deadly storm of bullets.

Torn asunder, the capsule of the Corax pilot ejected his lifeless body into space.

Panting, rage fading, the Thrasher pilot glanced at the last communication from the Corax before it exploded.

[00:54:07] Zombie Berlioz > aw gf :)

And the Thrasher pilot felt the strangest emotion.

Guilt.


Had he gone too far?