I never saw the face of the first person I killed.

It was in deep space, on the outer fringes of Holman Kerp, two jumps past New

Mars. An out-of-production Bell Star came around the blast side of a moon I didn’t know, lasers hot, providing an immediate lesson in the necessity of rearward firepower.

I fly an Aura Prime—named Sun Clipper V after a rich history of explorers—and

while she’s a sturdy vessel, this model wasn’t built to outmaneuver a fighter class. All the

forward guns in this galaxy didn’t equal shock if I couldn’t spin her fast enough to get off a shot.

In my defense, I tried killing the engine a few times in a fruitless effort to get my pursuer to fly

past me, but his reaction time blew that hope to dust. He could certainly fly.

If you told me he’d been a decorated space rider before turning to piracy, I wouldn’t

doubt you.

This level of trouble is what led me to enter the asteroid field.

There are galaxies where space rocks are distanced by miles, but this wasn’t

one of them. The Bell Star slowed its pursuit, though I still couldn’t turn. My plan was a

reach, something I would scoff at if anyone else told me they were planning on giving it a

go, and I never would’ve attempted it under different circumstances, but the situation was

plugged. My warp engine wasn’t ready for another jump, and you could bet brisk worms I wasn’t outrunning this shocker otherwise.

I put the Sun Clipper V on autopilot, setting her to land on the biggest asteroid in

the field, and got to work.

One of the perks of this plan was being able to ditch the fighter for lengthy

moments at a time. Not long enough to escape—as far as asteroid fields go, this wasn’t a

large one—but I could still work with it.

As my ship began its descent onto the rock, the Bell Star worked its way into

view, and there’s no question in my mind that the pilot took my landing as a sure sign of the

space drips.

And he would’ve been correct.

If I’d stayed in the ship.

The pirate never saw me, I’m certain of it, and as he sped past the asteroid I was

crouched on, the HAV clamps in my spacesuit keeping my footing square as I blasted the

side casing of his ship with my shoulder-mounted Hawk Cannon.

It wasn’t enough to take him out—not with his shields in play—but it rocked the vessel,

there’s no question, and I’m sure there wasn’t time for the pilot’s surprise to shift to fear

as his Bell Star rolled off course and smashed into an asteroid triple its size.

I watched the debris scatter for just a moment before operating my suit’s launch pack and making my way back to the Sun Clipper V before another asteroid could bang up against it and leave me stranded.