The Hero of Diphda

Tired and irritable, I dragged my bedraggled wreck of a body to the bar and took a stool next to a Rashkir named Zozo. He turned his head slightly in my direction, sputtering “Hope, what the hell happened to you?”

“I am never going to Diphda again,” I muttered as I motioned to the bartender for a drink.
“This is about a girl isn’t? Details, give em,” squealed another Rashkir named Tacoman.
“Diphda?!? Hope, what are you talking about?” whined Zanoni, the only human in the room. “Funny, I thought we heard you were being declared a hero in Diphda,” he buzzed
“You realize we have been ambushing around that gods forsaken sector Zueben Elakrab for the past three days waiting for you to come back, right?” growled Stryfe as he glared in my direction, the Rashkir leader of our little band of pirate misfits.

I raised a hand, slowly shaking my head, and mumbled toward Stryfe, “I know, I know, sorry. You aren’t gonna believe what just fucking happened to me.”
“Get talkin,” the Keldon Fallen Angel hissed grumpily.
“Alright, but I need another drink…” I muttered.

“First off, did anybody notice that Fallen Angel shot me? Course not, cuz nobody ever notices that shit, do they?” I groused at FA. “Anyways, after I triggered on Prince Frozen and Stryfe stole the kill once again,” I muttered as I rolled my eyes at Stryfe. My ambush teleporter slung me across the sector to my retreat point next to the worm hole to Zaniah.”

Raising my hand to stop any objections, “Before you start with the lectures, I usually try to pick a safe location, but with so many of us ambushing together I had no concern about being discovered, just reloading missiles as quickly as possible. I made the jump and headed to the planet. Radioing ahead to the technicians in the repair bay, I was told they had no missiles and the closest bay with missiles was Diphda.”

“Hope, didn’t I tell you that?” Stryfe gruffly broke in, glaring in my direction. “Probably, but I blocked your communications when I realized you stole my kill. Again.” I responded, returning Stryfe’s glare, who just shrugged as his glared morphed into a wolfish grin and went back to his drink.

“I knew that shooting down a Prince at the choke to the pass to the Empire Keldon Core would bring reinforcements, so I wanted to get back as quickly as possible in order to get a kill,” I continued. With Zaniah empty, I passed by the planet and went directly to the worm hole to Mebsuta. I made the jump, then paused shortly to check for the location of Perry (perry winder) before racing across the sector to the Phao worm hole.

As I jumped into Phao, my scanners picked up I slight blip near the worm hole to Seginus. It was a trader, and paused to let him enter the sector far enough that I could get a full scan. It was probably a Union trader or something else I could not shoot at, but one never knows. To my surprise, the visage of a Boa appeared on my target screen. Without missiles, I was too far away to engage so I broke from the worm hole on an intercept course to take it before it got to the planet. As I closed in on the target, the pilot must have realized that he could not make it and turned back to the worm hole to Seginus. Since I could not catch him, I sent a few salvos in his direction and then turned toward the planet.

Thinking the Boa might try to make the run again, I sat in orbit for a handful of minutes, but he seemed to have turned tail and run back to the EKC. Since I still needed to get to Diphda to get missiles, I broke orbit without docking and headed toward the worm hole. Just as I was about to hit the worm hole, another Boa popped up on my scanner directly behind me in the nebula gas. I started to turn back, but he ran for the planet before I could engage. Since the Boa pilot was either following me or hell bent on getting to Diphda sector, I figured my best bet was to get to the planet, load missiles for a little extra punch, then come back and set an ambush in the energy near the wormhole from Phao. To my surprise, I wasn’t alone in the worm hole. My scanners detected at least three moon crushers and several other Empire ships. I made the jump to Diphda, and found several more Imperials.

“Shit, this ain’t good,” I muttered to myself, then punched my ship into over drive and raced across the nebula to the planet. My plans for the Boa were not going to be put into action. I hit the planet and found several members of the Union and Empire elite floating in orbit. “Have ya’ll ever notice how strange it is that the factions refuse to shoot each other while in orbit? I mean, they have no problem shooting the likes of us due to our low reputation in the verse, but even in war they don’t shoot each other…” Thankfully they were all so distracted with each other that no one seemed to notice me. I docked at the repair station. Loaded armaments, and connected my scanners to the long range satellites orbiting the planet.

What I saw was disconcerting. It appeared that the Empire was attacking, or had attacked and was now defending the northern nook. There were military outposts all over the place. War ships were coming and going in all directions. Chaos reigned. And in the midst of the madness, I saw the most ridiculous thing. A Union behemoth was flying about like a giant bulls eye just daring an Empire ship to attack him. Several did, but no one seemed to hit the sucker. I have to say I forgot everything else and just stared and the crazy bastard in wonderment.

‘Talk about balls,” I laughed and decided to break orbit and get a closer look. When I got close enough for my scanners to identify the BBB, I wasn’t surprised to see who it was: crazy, brave, Dagobert. “Dags, ya’ll need help?” I messaged. “I am teleporting you some drugs. See if you can help the fighters take out that MO,” he responded.

I checked the navigation display and followed a scorpion into attack position on Juffo Wup’s MO. We hit simultaneously nine or ten times, reducing its defense and causing some structural damage as well as damaging his docked PASC. Since I took some damage myself, I turned back to the planet for repairs and more missiles. Then I headed back to the battle.

At the wall of military outposts, there were several scorpions and two Federation constructed Doom Stars engage with each other. Uncertain who was on what side, I bypassed the engagement and went back to the MO wall. Juffo Wup’s MO was down so I engaged with the next one in the line. Since it was owned by an old nemesis, Miche of X-com, I was more than willing to put as many rounds as I could into the structure and her docked PASC. As I hit the MO and Miche’s docked PASC with my six round, my combat computer flashed a brief warning and then the next thing I knew I was flying across the sector in my escape pod.

“Wait, I thought this was a story about heroics. So far, all we’ve heard is that Hope is a fool. Didn’t we already know that?” hissed Zanoni with a smile before he gulped down his drink and asked for another.

“Seriously,” said ZoZo, finally showing some interest in the story. “We heard through the Imperial communication channels that Hope Hubris caught an Imperial trader shuffling bots to the war zone 10-15 minutes before the operation began, warning the Union of the assault.”

As a big shit eating grinned took control of his face, Zozo raspy voice crustily finished his commentary saying, “Can’t you see Tsunami saying, ‘we would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for that meddling Hope Hubris.’” With that, the whole bar broke into uncontrollable laughter. Everyone except me, of course. The finally laughing myself, I added, “So I was credited with killing Frozen, huh? Guess Stryfe doesn’t count anymore.”

After several minutes of drink and shared mirth, the members of the Union Liberation Front returned to business when Zanoni brought us back to my story, bleating, “What a minute, Hope. When we got a reading on your ship entering the sector, your flight path looked to me like you were coming from Diphda. Why in the world did you go back there?”

“One pod ride not enough for you hatchling,” jeered FA as he brusquely clapped me on the shoulder.

Well,” I responded, dipping my head in embarrassment, “that is another story.” You see, I got to my home world and went to the office for my insurance agent. Silly Ska'ari crab was jubilant to see me. Never seen that before, and I’ll be damned if he didn’t clap me on the shoulder with his pincer before clicking and clacking at me so fast I could hardly catch any anything he said. One thing was clear though, he had no intention of paying for my replacement. Told me to go to Diphda, and handed me a first class ticket on a passenger ship. I nearly crapped myself looking at the crew for signs of sympathy.

“Do I look like a passenger to you? Don’t answer that,” I glared at them all as they smirked or guffawed in my general direction. So anyways, I board the ship when the time comes, and waste away the time with booze, cards and ladies—not necessarily in that order, mind you. After what seemed like an eternity, we jump into Diphda sector, make orbit at the planet and I am escorted to a shuttle by four burly security guards. They took me planet side to the presidential landing bay. “Yeah, you heard me correctly, Zanoni. They took me to meet the President of Diphda,” I intoned, since he was looking at me like I was crazy. “Diphda has a President? He asked skeptically, not whining for once, “Shit, I didn’t even know they had a loo.”

“Me either,” I shrugged before carrying on with my story. The president greats me in this massive ceremony broadcast all over the sector and possible the whole damn cluster. He gives me a stupid medal and declared me the hero of Diphda. At that point, a big swooshing sound went off, and down fell this massive curtain unveiling a giant statue of me dressed in my flight suit with my arms raised into the air like a damn idiot. Thing must be like two hundred meters tall and made entirely out of freaking butter.

“Butter? What is this butter?” hissed FA.

Ignoring him, I continued, “Now keep in mind there was a whole slew of Union fighters and support people at the Battle of Diphda. Together, they kicked the crap out of the Imperials and took back the nook, right? Yet, I am the one getting the recognition. And the Diphda-ians practically killed me before I got off that god forsaken planet—clapping me on the back, shaking my hands, and kissing me on the damn cheek. And it was all because some stupid Imperial pilot wrongfully credited me with a kill and said I warned the Union of an impending Imperial attack. Both of which were even half true.”

“Woe, woe, woe, so let me get this strait. You didn’t do shit except get yourself shot, and they gave you a statue?” exclaimed Tacoman incredulously, shaking his head in disbelief.
“What is wrong with this universe?” moaned Zanoni, burying his head in his hands, “I never get anything.”
“I call bullshit! This story is ridiculous” snarled Zozo, then he pursing his brow, he asked, “Wait a second, it was you that robbed Havok wasn’t it?”
“Me, never” I deflected as a big grinned smeared across my face.
“Alright, enough with the fairy tales,” barked Stryfe. Slamming his huge fist upon the bar as his wolfish grin shifted into his characteristic stoic masked of concentration, “Time to make plans for our next operation.”

“Next operation,” I sighed sleepily, and looked around the bar as if for the first time. I spoke confusedly, “Where the hell is Pirate Poo?”
“Oh, he got himself banned from the bar,” snickered Tacoman.
“Called some idiot a retard…” smirked Zanoni.