Interstellar Fighter

Chapter 2: Trash Shield and the Iron Law

The Pilgrim's hull began to vibrate faintly as the frozen globe of Europa swelled in the viewport, resembling a vast table of deep blue marble veined with white cracks. David was still buzzing from the adrenaline of piloting Old Bear, the phantom feel of the control sticks lingering on his fingertips.

Then, a piercing alarm sliced through the cabin's calm like a cold knife.

BLIP! BLIP! UNKNOWN VESSELS APPROACHING! HIGH ENERGY SIGNATURES!

"What the hell?!" Jack O'Malley's gruff voice boomed from the pilot's seat, his thick fingers already a blur over the control panels. Uncle Perry lunged into the co-pilot's seat, his face hardening as he stared at the radar screen.

David's heart skipped a beat. He gripped the cockpit doorframe, staring at the feed from the rear sensors. Three sleek, dart-like ships, like sharks scenting blood, were closing fast from the dark void behind them. Their engine nozzles glowed with an ominous, under-burned orange-red.

"Transponders read civilian, but they're goddamn modified!" Jack spat. "Look at those hull lines… Christ… Chinese-made 'Swift'-class fast freighters. Those sons of bitches stripped out the cargo holds and packed them with extra thrusters and weapon hardpoints!"

Perry cursed, his voice low and urgent. "Dammit. Knew bringing back this much hardware was asking for trouble. Where the hell are Europa's orbital patrols? Blind?"

"Orbital control is with the Chinese, sure!" Jack shot back without turning, his eyes glued to the tracking data. "But you think UNSA or the PLA-SF brass would lift a finger for a rustbucket like us against a few pirates? Unless we're flying their flag! These bastards are cunning—they pick on soft targets with no one to watch our backs!"

A cold dread crawled up David's spine. The starry ocean from textbooks and newsfeeds was full of promise, but reality was now baring its fangs. There were no police out here. Only hunters and prey.

"They're accelerating! They're on us!" Jack roared.

Perry slammed a fist onto a large red button on the console and yelled at David, "Kid, hold on tight! Welcome to the real curriculum of the Outer Territories!"

The Pilgrim's aging engines screamed in protest, the G-force pinning David against the bulkhead. The ship pitched into a near-suicidal dive towards Europa's thin atmosphere. Simultaneously, a hatch at the rear hissed open.

On the sensor display, David saw a massive cloud of garbage—food waste, discarded packaging, shattered heat tiles, and… faintly glinting metallic crushed rock—bloom behind them like a filthy nebula.

"Are they… dumping trash?" David was baffled.

The moment this trash cloud formed, weapon ports on the pursuing pirate skiffs flashed.

"Missiles! Heat-seekers! They're… hell, they're ancient!" Jack barked, wrestling with the controls as the ship jinked erratically. "Look at the profile… modified pre-Third War 'Hellfires,' for f**k's sake? These backwater bandits from the Central or South Asian blocs can only scrounge this junk from the black market!"

White contrails streaked through the darkness, unimpeded by air, the antiquated projectiles seeming to fly even faster.

"Point-defense! Jack, don't hold back!" Perry ordered.

The Pilgrim's side-mounted rotary cannons roared to life, spitting silent, deadly fire in the vacuum. They wove a sparse net of tracer fire. One missile was obliterated mid-flight, blooming into a brief fireball. Another was evaded by a violent sideslip, screaming past the hull into deep space. But the third plunged directly into the freshly ejected cloud of trash.

BOOM!

A dull thud resonated through the ship's frame. Debris rattled against the Pilgrim's outer cargo holds, thankfully failing to penetrate.

"Ha! Got the trash!" Jack let out a triumphant, savage laugh. "Enjoy the special salad your granddaddy prepared for you!"

Using the explosion and the debris cloud as cover, the Pilgrim, now glowing like a hot coal, plunged deeper into Europa's atmosphere. Violent friction painted the hull incandescent red. The entire ship shuddered and groaned. David held on for dear life, his insides feeling scrambled.

Minutes later, the intense shaking subsided as the ship leveled out into stable flight low over Europa's icy plains. On the sensors, only two pirate signals remained; one seemed to have suffered engine failure from pushing too hard in the chase and had retreated. The other two circled briefly before vanishing from the radar's edge.

"Clear." Jack exhaled heavily, wiping sweat from his brow as he slumped into his seat.

Perry relaxed his stance and turned to David, whose face was pale but eyes still bright. He grinned. "Scared, kid?"

David nodded honestly, then shook his head. "A little… But more… that was insane."

"That's how us old-timers survive out here, son." Perry walked over and clapped him on the shoulder, pointing towards the stern. "We call that the 'Trash Shield.'"

"Trash… Shield?"

"Yep," Perry explained, his tone dripping with hard-earned pragmatism. "We store our life garbage, along with the low-yield ore slag that's not worth hauling back, in a dedicated ejection bay at the stern. Run into pirates dumb enough to use cheap missiles, we dump this crap. The guidance systems on those old birds are stupid—easily fooled by heat and metal fragments. Lowest cost solution to a big problem. Out here, every real point-defense missile is precious. Use 'em only if you have to."

The realization dawned on David. This wasn't the glamorous energy shield duel of fleet battles. This was the rough, brutally effective wisdom of those scratching out a living on the fringes.

Just then, the comms crackled with an accented voice—vaguely Eastern European—and a slightly bureaucratic tone. "Pilgrim, this is Europa Orbital Control. We detected brief energy discharge and potential weapons fire in your vicinity. Please report your status."

Perry picked up the handset, his voice instantly shifting to weary and placating. "Control, this is Pilgrim. Affirmative. We were harassed by three unidentified assault skiffs. Successfully evaded, hostiles have departed. Repeat, threat neutralized. Over."

"...Acknowledged, Pilgrim. Incident logged. Proceed with caution." The voice clearly had no intention of investigating further. The channel went dead.

"Logged," Jack mimicked the accent with a sneer. "Meaning 'filed away in the 'never-to-be-looked-at' archives.' Bureaucracy. Same goddamn story everywhere."

The Pilgrim finally set down on the edge of a massive, crater-like depression. A well-camouflaged elevator platform, disguised as an ice formation, slowly descended, carrying the ship underground.

The interior of the mining base was brightly lit but smelled of rock dust, engine oil, and sweat. It was less a base and more an enlarged mine shaft, with exposed rock and support struts everywhere. A handful of workers in grimy coveralls, of various ethnicities, gathered to begin efficiently unloading crates from the Pilgrim's hold.

David saw the labels: durable mechanical parts, high-sensitivity sensors, synthetic lubricants. It was a significant haul.

A lean, bespectacled Asian technician, tallying the goods, said to Perry, "Boss, this is a heavy shipment. No wonder we attracted pirates. Lose this, and we'd be dead in the water for half a year."

Perry lit a cigar, took a deep drag, and through the haze, looked at David. His tone was matter-of-fact, revealing another harsh truth. "See, David? This is why this sorry patch is still ours. Low yield, poor concentration of rare metals. The military and the big corps don't bother with scraps. The real prize mines? They were carved up like a cake the moment the Scorched Earth Accords were signed. Left for civilian outfits like us? The crumbs they can't be bothered to bend down for."

David looked at the bustling workers, at the mingled exhaustion and resilience on his uncle's and Jack's faces, at the civilian-configured Old Bear sitting quietly in the hangar. For the first time, he understood with crystal clarity the price people like them had to pay just to survive, let alone live with dignity, in a starscape carved up by the rules of greater powers.

His hand tightened around the soldier's dog tag in his pocket. His father's battlefield had been in the mud of Europe. His battlefield was here, among these cold, dangerous, opportunistic stars. To protect anything, he had to become stronger. That resolve burned within him, fiercer than ever before.