Beautiful Release

Hey, Jude! Don't let me down
You have found her, now go and get her.
The Beatles - Hey Jude

"This is Provi traffic control, we've got an unconfirmed gatefire. Get me an ID,"

"Roger that Provi TC, This is KBP7 tac G. Wilco,"

"Copy that, what've ya got?"

"Ooh, it's a 'ranis on the naughty list,"

"Roger, sounding the alarm,"

"You catch the name?"

"He just left local but yeah, Hallan Turrek,"

"I've heard of him, that guy's a tough son of a bitch,"

___________________

"Look, I don't give a good goddamn what you think," Hallan said sternly into his comm unit, "Crepes are like a tortilla or something,"

"Whatever," a woman's voice on the other end piped back, "Don't you have some dieing horribly to do out there?"

"I'll have you know, Janelle, that I've got one of the best records in the corp for... you know, not dying horribly,"

"Yeah, and I bet your corpmates are really happy about that,"

"So good in fact, it makes the other guys look bad,"

"Cause in a group of hired killers the first thing you want to do is make them all look bad,"

"...Aren't you supposed to be making me feel better?"

"I'm your girlfriend, not your life coach,"

"I'm hanging up on you now,"

"You called me!" She said with a laugh as her end of the line went quiet.

Hallan jumped his ship through the DNR gate and waited for his senses to adjust. Local chat was empty, so he continued on to the K1Y gate.

As he jumped through he noticed five pilots in local. Hallan immediately warped to the nearest planet and began to run his scanner. Nothing appeared that promising until he noted a Drake called "Rat Raper" on scan with an asteroid belt. He kicked his Taranis around and bounded into warp after it.

"I just looked it up," His comms blasted as they shot back to life. Janelle continued, "Crepes are thin pancakes,"

"Hon, I'm a little busy right now,"

"With what?"

"Got a Drake. No. Damn it, he's seventy kilometers away,"

"Tackle him anyway?"

"Look at you with the pod pilot parlance. Where'd you pick that up?"

"I'm dating one who can't stop talking about his job,"

"Sounds like he's kind of a dick," He said as his voice trailed off.

"You don't know the half of it. You just wanted to say pod pilot parlance didn't you?"

"Uh..." He paused, "Hey he's tackled. He let me crawl seventy kilometers in an afterburner fit Taranis,"

"No seriously, you've had that on in your pocket for days, and you were just waiting to say it to somebody,"

"Whatever, I'm still busy,"

"Alright, I'll talk to you when you get back then. I love you," The comms went dead and Hallan focused on the battle. The Taranis had no shields left, while the Drake still had most of his. So far no one in local was coming to help.

"Yo need help. Planet 10, Belt 2," The Drake pilot loudly shouted in local as Hallan remained quiet, "Hallan Turrek 'ranis," He added before another pause, "Hull 50%"

Hallan wondered a bit to himself why he'd said that, since the Taranis still had 75% armor. No matter. The Drake was hitting 40% shields just as Hallan overloaded his blasters. His two hobgoblin's did their work as well while he waited.

Over the next couple of minutes he worked the shields down which finally dissipated on the Drake, just as the Taranis entered structure. Hallan stopped overloading his guns.

The Taranis took even less damage now as it's structure took small hits. Hallan's gun were punching hard into the Drake's armor and then structure.

Very quickly the Drake simply exploded.

"Wait a minute, did you just say 'I love you?'" Hallan said into the comms as he popped the pod and scooped the loot. He warped out just as a flycatcher landed and Hallan chuckled a bit as he plotted a course out of Providence.

"Did you just laugh at me?" Janelle's voice said quietly.

"Nah babe, Flycatcher landed just as I got away with the stuff,"

"Ok,"

"We'll talk more when I get back,"