Interstellar Mercenary

by Will Macmillan Jones

  “I don’t make much mess.”

  “Liar. I’ve seen your living area. Why is this ship bouncing about?” The Rigellian’s head banged into the edge of the flight console after a particularly violent lurch. He shouted something obscene in Rigellian.

  “The bounty hunters are trying to get a hold on us with a tractor beam.”

  “Oh. I presume that’s bad? What can you do?”

  “I’ve got the defence screens up, and they are deflecting the tractor beam from getting a grip on us, but the impact knocks us around a bit.” I released another couple of space mines, and this time was delighted to see an explosion in the rear vidscreen. “Got them!” I crowed.

  The Rigellian pulled himself up from the floor so that he could see over the edge of the flight console. “What’s happened?”

  “Look!” I pointed at the rear vidscreen. The freighter had peeled away from us, with smoke and flame billowing out of the hull. “That’ll teach them to mess with the kid!”

  “Are we safe?”

  “From them, for a while at least.”

  “Their ship’s on fire! Will they be all right?”

  “What do you care? They attacked us and got what they deserved.” I settled the Speedbird into a course for Morainis, programmed the navcomm to deliver us to a point close to the outermost planet of the system and waited for our flight speed to reach VH and allow our transition into hyperspace.

  *

  The Speedbird dropped out of hyperspace at the destination. I held my breath, waiting for the collision alert or missile lock alarms to start screaming: the resounding silence was somehow worse. I killed all forward speed and started scanning the immediate area for any threats.

  “Are we there yet?” asked Rennie, sounding like any petulant teenager taken on a long trip.

  “Close.” I pointed at a planet in the forward vidscreen. “There’s the outer planet. Morainis is further in.”

  “What are we waiting for, then?”

  “I’m assessing the level of threat before proceeding with caution.”

  “And?”

  “And what, Rennie?”

  “And what is the level of threat, Frank?”

  “Can’t see anything, right now,” I admitted. “But if this place is as close to the border as it seems, and the Imperium are keeping their grip on the system as the rumours say, then we would be very silly to think that the system will be undefended.” I tweaked the power lever and set a course for a moon that was orbiting the outer planet.

  “Where are we going?” asked Rennie.

  “Let’s set down on that moon, and watch. There’s bound to be some traffic coming this way, and we can watch what happens.” It didn’t take too long for me to put the Speedbird down on the surface of the moon. The moon itself seemed completely deserted, and a quick scan of the outer planet revealed nothing to alarm me. Time passed…

  “Is this all the music you’ve got? Nothing modern?”

  “I like jazz.”

  “Frank, you’re weird.”

  More time passed.

  “Frank, we could grow old doing this. Just sitting around bored.”

  “Growing old in boredom sounds like a good plan to me. Better than dying quickly in excitement. Do you play chess?”

  “No.”

  Time passed.

  “Queen to King’s Bishop three: that’s checkmate. Again.”

  “I thought you couldn’t play chess, Rennie?”

  “I said that I didn’t, not that I couldn’t.”

  A bleeping alarm from the flight deck saved Rennie from experiencing a momentary excitement. “That’s a proximity alarm!” I exclaimed and headed for the flight deck. Rennie followed me, looking alternatively smug and alarmed.

  “What’s to see?”

  I scanned the immediate area frantically, and finally located a ship. I pointed to it on the vidscreen. “There. Looks like an interstellar freighter. Starting its run in to the system.”

  “Well it hasn’t exploded, so it must be safe enough.”

  We watched the ugly, dumpy, space freighter forge steadily into the system. It carried no markings that I could see, and the comms channel was silent. Except for two rotating orange beacons, there were no visible external lights. Except for those two beacons the ship might have been a hulk, forever wandering between stars. I shivered. That was a fate that quite possible awaited me. Abandoned, dead, (or so seriously ill that I was on the waiting list for a visit from the Grim Reaper) possibly in great pain and quite alone and beyond all aid. I shivered.

  “Someone walked over your grave?” asked Rennie, cheerfully.

  I was saved from replying. Out of nowhere, light beams struck the freighter, flared against inadequate and futile shields. The freighter exploded, sparking unimaginable colours.

  “Whoa!” yelled Rennie. “There was no warning! That could have been us!”

  The point had not escaped me. “That’s why you don’t rush into things, here on the frontier.”

  Chapter seven

  The space freighter drifted, burning and clearly unable to support life. Rennie had wondered if we should try and rescue any crew members that might have survived the attack, but I wasn’t keen. “He who runs away lives to fly another day,” I told him. I had increased the magnification on the vidscreen, but no escape pods had ejected from the freighter. Probably the crew had been surprised by the attack and had not had time to make their escape, but still: I was still suspicious. It helped keep me alive.

  “Aren’t you going to check for survivors then?” asked Rennie.

  “I’m not being paid for that.”

  “Surely, Frank, you have more humanity in you than that?”

  “Rennie, it’s not about humanity. It’s about keeping thee and me from sharing the fate of the crew on that freighter. If there was one.”

  “What do you mean? If there was one?”

  “Remember how dark that ship was? No lights at all? Then no escape pods? No comms at all? Not even a distress message?”

  “They didn’t have time.”

  “Every ship has an automated distress call. No pilot disables it – you just never know, you know?”

  I turned away to go for more coffee, but Rennie pulled me back into the flight deck. “Frank. Look at this.”

  I looked into the forward vidscreen – nothing. But there, in the rear screen, was the unmistakeable shape of a large military space ship. Painted jet black, but with the starship and sun of the Imperium painted in gold on the nose and with enough nav and riding lights shining along its length to light up a small town. Or village. Or hamlet. Or city, depending on how populated your world is.

  “That’s an Imperium Black Ops ship,” I said quietly. Rennie just nodded in reply. He clearly knew what I was talking about.

  The black ship slid forward and closed on the remains of the freighter. At a safe distance the Black Ops ship slowed down and a number of space suited people floated across the void. They vanished into the freighter, and after a short time the fires were extinguished. The beacons started rotating again.

  “They’ll never make that fly. Will they?” asked Rennie.

  As we watched, another group left the Black Ops ship and headed towards the freighter. They carried a number of large boxes with them. I slipped onto the pilot’s seat, and tried not to make it fall over, with limited success. Braced against the console, I teased the power lever forward. The Speedbird vibrated and lifted away from the surface of the moon.

  “What are you doing?”

  “While they are busy recovering that freighter, we are going to try and slip past them.” I opened the combat computer and set the defence screens to max. We were already pointing down into the system, so I shoved the power lever all the way forward. “Hold on to something,” I advised Rennie.

  “Why?”

  The Speedbird shuddered. The lights went out completely, then flickered, flashed, and came back on again. Rennie clutched at me as I clutched at the flight
controls.

  “I didn’t mean hang on to me!” I shouted, shrugging him off. Rennie staggered and fell to the floor. The Speedbird rocked again.

  “What’s happening? What’s happening?”

  “Whatever smacked that freighter is firing at us,” I explained before sending the old Speedbird into the wildest evasive action I thought the hull could stand. Rennie rolled around on the floor and then was violently sick in the doorway. Then, to cap it all, the missile lock warning siren screamed. I ignored the stench from the Rigellian, and kept the evasive action going. The missile lock warning stopped and I immediately chopped back the power and fired the forward thrusters. Taken by surprise and unable to stop in time, the Black Ops strike ship overflew us. I fired on instinct and by sheer luck the torpedo shot straight into the rear engine pod and exploded.

  “What’s happening? What’s happening?”

  “I’m a bit busy,” I told Rennie.

  The stricken Black Ops ship spun slowly round and three escape pods ejected from the side. For a moment I contemplated stopping to pick up the evacuees – then remembered that they worked for Colonel Starker and some common sense reasserted itself, together with a side order of self preservation. I pushed the power lever all the way forward and fled the scene.

  “What’s happening?”

  “We’re inside the defences. How I’m going to get back out again I’m not sure, but I’ve got you inside.”

  The Rigellian scrambled to his feet. “Great job, Frank. It’s true what they say about you.”

  “What do they say about me?”

  “That you might be a waste of space as a human. But you can’t half fly a scout ship.”

  I wasn’t sure that was a compliment. My confusion probably showed.

  “Frank, you’re a mercenary. You work for hire, for anyone with the cash. What more do you want them to say about you?”

  I thought about that. And then thought about it some more. “And where do they say these things about me?”

  Rennie sounded guarded. “Oh, you know. Around. Bars. Cafes. The places where people like me, who want to hire people like you, hang around listening to gossip.”

  “What else do they say?”

  “That it’s no good asking you to do something against The Free Union, unless the customer wants to be shopped to Colonel Rosto.”

  That might be why I hadn’t been getting so much work recently. No one wants to hire someone who might be a nark for one of the galaxy’s nastier men.

  “Who’s been spreading rumours like that?” I asked.

  Rennie grinned. “Probably Rosto. He wants you back, Frank.”

  “He can go and…”

  “No need for all that. Rosto likes you, Frank.”

  “Admiral Crichton doesn’t. And I don’t like the Admiral, either. So I’ll just stay as I am. I’m doing fine. I don’t care if Rosto wants me back, I’m done with all that military stuff. Retired.”

  “Sure you are, Frank,” agreed Rennie. “That’s why you agreed to take me into an Imperium hot spot, isn’t it?”

  “No. I agreed because I needed the money. Now, shut up and let’s see what’s going on ahead, shall we?”

  The forward vidscreen, at full magnification, showed Morainis approaching. Imperium troopships and freighters swarmed around the planet like flies. Modern Aello class frigates, easily powerful enough to blow my Speedbird apart and with weaponry capable of taking on a StarDestroyer or two in ship-to-ship combat circled the throng. As we watched, fascinated (and in my case, horrified as well) a Dreadnought class battlecruiser appeared from behind the planet, and continued round in its stately orbit. Everything else just got out of the way. Four StarDestroyers followed it as escorts. I cut back the power and let the Speedbird drift.

  “How do you propose to get us through that lot?” asked Rennie. He was realistic enough to understand that the Imperium’s forces were a serious obstacle.

  “Rennie, that’s a full scale Imperium invasion fleet. Morainis might have tried to defect to The Free Union, but the Imperium had other ideas. Whatever you wanted to do on the planet, I don’t think it’s happening.”

  “I’ll have to have the money back.”

  “Can’t spend it if I’m dead.”

  We were still at some distance from Morainis, so I tweaked the nose thrusters, and let the Speedbird drift quietly into the cover of a convenient asteroid cluster. I shut down all external lights, all the navcomm devices and opened the comms channels and started listening in. It was very soon clear that the Imperium’s troops had taken control and that the resistance had been wiped out or reduced to small pockets. One such pocket holding out had frustrated the ground attack, and the commander called in an airstrike.

  “Commodore to Ground Gold Commander. Pass the co-ordinates for the strike.”

  When the Gold Commander read a set of co-ordinates out, Rennie pulled some flimsy maps out of a pocket of his flight suit. “That’s the centre of Phaedra City!” he gasped. “Surely they wouldn’t. Would they? The people…”

  “Commodore to Ground Gold Commander. Fire Demon Strike approved. Pull your men back.”

  “Frank. Can you do something? Anything?”

  “What do you suggest, Rennie?” I was horrified, but equally terrified of closing in on one of the largest collections of military space hardware that I had ever seen.

  “Commodore to all units. Fire Demon Planetary strike in progress. Clear passage and remain at a safe distance from flagship.”

  “Frank, it’s moving! Do something!” Rennie started sobbing. Not just crying, but actually sobbing. “There are people down there. People who need our help.”

  “Rennie, have you seen what’s there? That’s not any old space ship, it’s a full-sized freaking battlecruiser. A Dreadnought: the largest ship the Imperium has. They only have four of them, and they have risked one of them here. If you think that they will only have a few StarDestroyers and those Aello class frigates here, you are mistaken. Somewhere there’s more warships than you can count, all of them bored stupid and waiting for something to do.”

  We watched as the Dreadnought changed course, and began to take position, presumably over Phaedra City. The freighters, troopships and escorts scrambled to get out of its way. Nothing wanted to be anywhere near the battlecruiser, which made me even more frightened of the weapon it was about to use on the planet.

  “Don’t touch anything!” I told Rennie and left the flight deck. I ran across the living quarters, and into the engine bay. I pushed past the hot, humming, covers of the hyperdrive and the main engines and found the small doors that gave access to the defence pods. Beside the door hung a flashlight: I had long ago decided that the fixed lighting in the defence pods was more of a hazard to me than a benefit and disconnected it. If it had shorted out, who knows what it might make explode? I grabbed the flashlight and shone the slender beam into the darkness. I was counting what I had left. There were eight space mines and only four torpedoes left from the last time I had fully loaded the bay when I worked for Serenopolis. Use those up now, and I would only have laser cannon left. I went back to the flight deck in a pensive mood.

  “We could record the event, and send it to The Free Union as evidence of a War Crime?” I suggested.

  “We could,” agreed Rennie. He had stopped sobbing, I was relieved to see. “The Commodore intends to broadcast the event live and stream it to everyone across the frontier though, so it might be waste of time.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  Rennie just gave me a look. He was right. The answer was obvious, even to me.

  “Rubbish person, but great pilot, am I?” I mused aloud.

  “Frank. When I said you should do something earlier…”

  “Yes Rennie?” I wriggled my bottom on the pilot’s seat until I felt truly comfortable, and tightened the harness.

  “I’m not sure that I meant do something dangerous.”

  “Dangerous? For us, or for them?”

 
; “Errr. For us.”

  I flipped open the lock over the weapons controls and opened up the defence section of the flight computer.

  “You see this button?” I asked Rennie.

  “Yes.”

  “When I tell you to, press it and hold it down. But don’t touch it until I say.”

  “What are you doing?” Rennie’s voice had risen three octaves, and I realised that he was scared.

  “Are you scared?” I asked him. He didn’t reply, which was of course a reply in itself. “Because frankly, I’m terrified.”

  “That’s not very reassuring.”

  “Look!” I pointed at the vidscreen. A section of the hull had slid to one side, and a wide, squat and loathsome looking tube had poked out. “Are you ready to do something, Rennie?”

  I set the defence screens to maximum. Not that they would help us against the firepower packed by one of those Aello class ships, of course, but it made me feel better.

  “Hold onto something. Anything. But not me, and don’t let your hand move away from that button!”

  I selected full power, and the elderly Speedbird jumped as if she had been kicked. I aimed directly at the upper hull of the Dreadnought, and hunched my shoulders. The Imperium fleet ships had spread apart from the Dreadnought, leaving the huge ship in a solitary, stationary position. Hopefully they would all be so busy looking at the planet before the strike, that we would not be noticed. For a while.

  “Gold Commander to Commodore. All Imperium ground units have withdrawn to a safe distance.” The comms channel was still open, and Rennie flinched at the sound of the ground commander’s voice.

  “Very well. Commodore to all Imperium space craft. Remain outside the exclusion zone around Dreadnought Conqueror during the process of the strike. Conqueror will make a record of the strike, the first use of this new technology of the Imperium. Foes, enemies and rebels should observe, and draw their conclusions to determine their future behaviour. Dragon Fire Planetary Strike is initialised.”

  “Frank!” Rennie was getting frantic. I tried to ignore his panic, in case it infected my own.