Call Me Moss – 8 – The Combat Zone

It had to happen sooner or later. Reese was sick of babysitting the Back Bacon Express and demanded we see some real action.

Why kids actively want to stick their neck out so it’ll get chopped off is beyond me. But is just so happened that a shift was happening in the system I call home, Wurango. They’d been under the corporate thumb for a long time now, and not the nice kind of corporation… though I’m not entirely sure the nice kind exists. Corps don’t care about people, just profits.

I like Wurango because by all rights nobody should care about it. It’s an independent system, not close enough to the Bubble to be part of the Federation, Empire, or Alliance. Not important enough for any big wigs to try and claim with their powerplays and schemes.

But it’s got a bit of everything going on for it. Access to high-tech equipment, decent mining opportunities, Earth-like world to kick your feet up on when space gets to be too much. There’s even a floating casino out there in case you feel like you have too many credits in your bank account.

Anyway, this corp has a stranglehold on the system, and while the other factions there are mostly a bunch of tools ranging from anarchists to theocracies to, oh great, more corporations, there is a growing push towards democracy from the local population… as well as the Feds creeping in with their idea of democracy. No thanks.

So, it looks like I’m backing the Future of Wurango… bloody idealistic sounding name that really doesn’t inspire me with a lot of hope. Sounds like the kind of name schoolkids come up with who have big ideas but can’t see an atomic wedgie in their immediate future.

Well, whatever. I decided to throw my lot in with them for a while, see what happens. And wouldn’t you know it, the first thing they do is find the second biggest kid in the schoolyard and tweak their nose. Not the big corp, mind you, but a smaller subsidiary. Baby steps, I guess.

Anyway, when Reese and I got back from our bio-scanning picnic, those two were going at it like minks in mating season.

So Reese got her wish. I took a contract to help the Future’s space superiority efforts around one of Wurango’s planets. Dogfights were breaking out on a fairly regular basis in at least three of them.

Well, just because I agreed to fight didn’t mean I was going to risk my neck doing it, so I let Reese get her practice in virtually via the ship-Iaunched fighter, while the Keelback stayed nice and far away from any danger.

Honestly, I’m surprised more people don’t do it this way.

I sipped on a soda while Reese did her thing, watching her ship dance through the HUD, striking a blow for democracy or whatever. I’d have more qualms about this if I thought she’d actually kill anyone.

You’d be surprised at the survival rate for pilots in combat zones. It’s one of the reasons the fights just keep going and going. It ain’t because they have a clone factory, let me tell you. They’re not too worried about having skin in the game, just losing too many credits.

Still, I ain’t pushing my luck by going in there. I might spill my drink.

“Call Me Moss” is not set in the Get Lost universe, per se, but the game that inspired my love of the genre: Elite Dangerous (which is where the screenshots come from). Writing little bits like this is just one way I get in the right mindset for the next big adventure in my world. Consider this Moss as being from an alternate universe 😉