"A simple mission, they said. Only need a bit of fuel, they said. The natives won't mind, they said." He continued muttering on as his simple mission convoluted and evolved into a beast before his eyes.
Jumping into Jupiters orbit was easy, after all. Getting a bit of fuel from the stations, nemas problemas. In theory. In practice the humans were not to happy about it, and instead of accepting payment were very insistent on his immediate ceasing to be.
After many painful hours, he had managed to deescalate the situation into a hot soup of a mess, instead of a potentially nuclear one. When his superior decided to pop into the system for a visit.
&nbps;
"Jenkins, why are you still here? A simple refueling mission to hard for ya?" The gentle chuckling of his superior grated on his nerves.
"'Won't mind a bit' you said! I have good piece of mind to get over there and-" His curses flowed and ebbed at the shut off transmission. When he felt spent on curses he took a deep breath and turned it on again. "Sorry about that sir, fiddled with the transmission button."
"Never mind that, Jenkins. What's this incoming chatter about blowing us up?"
"They do not seem to appreciate our sudden appearance, sir."
"For gods sake they are just primitive natives, kill a couple of them and the rest will scurry."
"With all due respect, I do not think it would be wise in the current circumstances to-"
"Let me show you how it's done!" Oh fuck, what had he expected, diplomacy and tact? Ha! Better prep the engines for another jump, one nuclear soup coming up!
&nbps;
Surpringsingly enough the humans had more restraint than he had given them credit for. Only backing away a bit when the first few laser beams started flying.
"See Jenkins, that's how it's done. Now get the god damn fuel so we can get out of here!"
"Sir, we need their cooperation to get the fuel from their station into our tanks without blowing up both them and us."
"Can't you do anything right? Fine. Give me a moment to negotiate." That was a sentence he never thought would hear the light of day, him of all people negotiate? A most frightful disposition if he had ever heard one. At least the engines were prepped for jump, this hot soup was most likely about to turn into plasma.
&nbps;
This time the humans patience had reached its end. With some reinforcement they felt brave enough to attack, or at least probably would have if they didn't shoot first! There goes any decent justification for self defense.
"Don't just sit there Jenkins, shoot a bit, get in on the fun!" "This is a fuel ship, sir. Very dangerous at close ranges, but only once." "Suit yourself!"
&nbps;
Humans fired salvo after salvo of missiles and bullets, but lasers took care of most of it. The leftovers splattered harmlessly over the shields. In return the defensive lasers turned offensive, and white hot patches quickly appeared on the affected ships. The humans tried their best to spin around and disperse the energy, but to no avail. They burned!
Curious thing fire in space, not really were it's supposed to be, as much as it's supposed to be anywhere. A more careful person might have wondered why they did that, a more careful person would not have driven up right next to the enemy ships to taunt them.
&nbps;
The human ships almost as one saw their chance, and at once they turned port and vented their fuel tanks in the general direction of the hostile ship.
The thing about rocket fuel is that there are many different kinds; there is the flammable kind, the very flammable kind and the 'You got to be kidding me, I'm not putting that anywhere near sentient beings' kind, that also happened to burn in vacuum. The humans had went with option three.
&nbps;
Now shields, they are great for most things, but they do need to activate. Clouds of liquids, wandering around at low velocities, just wasn't what they were meant for.
Soon the entire starboard side of the ship was in flames.
"Jenkins, emergency jump!" He was only too glad to hear those words, his prepped engines instantly jumped away.
In the void between stars two ships sat, in radio silence. One darker than the other.
"Not a word about this, Jenkins. Not a word!" "I would never, sir." Who needs words when a recording was so much more... visceral.
[Who here likes Chlorine Trifluoride? Raise the stumps of your hands!] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=101&v=M4l56AfUTnQ)