Torsten Makes A Wall

	Within the vast emptiness of space, a limitless vacuum in which 100 miles between meteors is a close distance, it is statistically very unlikely that any two objects should have rancor towards each other. In this situation, however, the odds were 1-1, and thus posed a problem. Torsten Norskjott always saw himself as something of a problem-solver. He had pursued a career in engineering for a while, but had abandoned it for a more rewarding life path of a Lancer. The thing is that while he saw himself as a problem solver, his problems were limited and more or less all the same- how do we kill the enemy? How can we destroy their assets? What can we do to render them unable or unwilling to raise their hands against us in the future? This was, more or less, his reason for pursuing the path of a Harrison pilot. He felt a kinship with a lot of the eggheads that worked for the company- they were fellow engineers and 'problem-solvers.'

	Right now, the problem was that his team's ship was being pursued through real-space by a pirate vessel, one that was faster than they were, more heavily armed, and ready to storm them and take whatever they pleased, be it cargo, equipment, lives, and pleasure. Anything goes out in deep space for these lawless bastards. The transport ship was carrying some much-needed medical supplies for a nearby colony, and Torsten had been contracted along with a couple other Lancers to get that shit delivered through pirate-occupied space. They had already taken a couple bruises on the way over, and while they had done some repairs, they weren't up to their full capacity to get their mechs back into tip-top shape. Hence, the problem.

	Torsten felt pretty confident as he slid into the arms and legs of his Napoleon. What a good little mech. It was the smallest unit Harrison had available for him, being more like an exoskeleton than a proper mech. His hands slid past the sensor-lined quilted arms into the manipulator gloves at the end, as his feet did the same and the suit sealed up behind him. It was equipped with an EVA module, courtesy of GMS, and had a few other systems and personalizations loaded onto it. He needed three, all of which were ready to go from the time the mission started. Nearby, one of his buddies was starting up their Blackbeard. It was lanky, and didn't exactly have the build that garnered its berserker reputation, Torsten thought, but the synthetic muscle netting built into the frame did more than enough work. That, and it was what the team needed right now to solve this problem.

	The two of them left the cargo bay they were using as a hangar, climbing carefully onto the relative top of the ship. The Blackbeard lifted up Torsten in his Napoleon, and the engineer did some quick math based on acceleration. After finishing those, he came up with something resembling a firing solution, or in this case, more of a 'pitching' solution. Blackbeard hefted the Napoleon up weightlessly, spreading its magnetically clamped feet as it attuned itself into a pitching stance, then hurled Torsten's Napoleon at the pirate ship- Torsten included.

	The trip lasted a few minutes- could it have been done later? Perhaps, but when Torsten saw the pirate ship swivel its large guns at the transport, Torsten signed for a system macro. Miles away, the pirate ship fired its main cannon, launching a shaped slug up the gun barrel and out the end, soundlessly. Maybe if things weren't so advanced, Torsten would have been obliterated or waylaid by the ship-destroyer shell. Not in this case, though. Torsten altered his trajectory just a bit, and once he did so it was just about time for his gambit to start paying off. That shell they fired out was going faster than either of them, but  as Torsten came clearer he fired off a Stasis Bolt, a small energy pylon that collided with the fast, massive shell and suddenly brought it to a total stop. Torsten reached out to just barely flick at the shell as he flew right by it, pleased and content with his victory upon the pirates, but then remembered that such a thing would interfere with his trajectory and he withdrew his hand like a child considering touching the hot stove.

	As Torsten closed in on the the pirate ship, he started to slow down his velocity. A few powerful counter-thrusts from the EVA in the opposite direction of his trajectory did the trick, and he was slowed down to about 20kph, and the pirates were coming right up on him. With a voice command and a press of a button, the Napoleon's greater pair of arms conjured up a wall, forty feet wide and tall, right in front of the pirate ship. It was a Stasis Barrier, part of the Napoleon's suite of defensive capabilities. While a normal wall would simply be run through by the ship, this barrier was instead locked into the ship's gravitational field, drawing into it based on its own manipulation of gravitational fields. In addition to this, though, the wall was incapable of letting objects of a certain mass pass through it, only a few projectiles managing to bust through on average. With that, the pirate ship ran right into the wall, its main structure crunching in like an accordion. Torsten was safe on the other side, as explosions went off in front of and all around him- all he had to do was keep the shield up.

	Eventually, as the three major remnants of the ship flew past him, as well as a multitude of debris, he let the shield go and jetted back towards the transport, bouncing off a few of the major pieces to make sure they wouldn't end up flying into the ship like mega-size shrapnel. It'd take about an hour to get back, but he didn't mind the wait. He was stewing in his own self-satisfaction, and that was enough to keep him occupied. After all, the problem had been solved.