by Drew Wagar
She bit her lip and brought her mind ruthlessly back into the subject in hand, breathing deeply to order her thoughts. It took her several moments to regain her composure. She dropped the comm-tab on the floor, cursing at her clumsiness.
After this is done and dusted I'm getting that memory hex-edited! Then it will go away!
“You all right sister?” the bar man said, showing concern for the benefit of his other customers, looking at her askance. He’d seen enough emotionally troubled people in his time to spot the obvious signs.
“I’m fine,” Rebecca snapped, glaring back at him.
The bar man shrugged, turning back to his duties. “Your funeral, honey.”
Rebecca grabbed the comm-tab and left the bar, walking quickly back toward the docking levels.
They thought I could be Elite. Think about that! A member of the Dark Wheel for God’s sake! I want to be Elite!
She was worried as to what the Dark Wheel would do if she backed out of this agreement. They seemed pretty uptight. She could easily imagine them pursing her across space, and she had to sleep sometime. It was prudent not to have too many enemies simultaneously.
She was also staggered that the assassin had taken down a Dark Wheel Elite combateer as easily as he had. She knew she was a good flyer, but she’d never really thought she was that exceptional. Plenty of other pilots were ‘Deadly’ like herself, though perhaps not at her age. Was she really the only one to face that assassin and live? The SuperCobra had been one hell of a ship though, would her Cobra Courier be up to the job?
She also sensed the man hadn’t told her everything. Was all that stuff about Raxxla true? Could it really exist?
As if! The assassin has them riled, that’s all. They want to give Galcop a bloody nose over this, and who can blame them!
Anyway, decision made. Let them believe in fairy tales if they wanted to. She wanted the assassin, and this was by far the best lead she’d had in ages, and it wouldn’t hurt at all to kick a little Galcop butt along the way. Galcop had been complicit in the death of her family; that score could do with evening out. It would be sweet retribution to take on the Galcop mission too, despite Iacobus’ reservations. Perhaps she could recover the file first and then destroy the Galcop team. If she could get paid for it all, so much the better.
And if I do find the Raxxla file, then maybe that’s worth having too. Raxxla’s got to be worth more than five million…
A snatch of conversation drifted back through her mind, a warm embrace and an earnest caring expression…
“Give up the revenge.”
She ruthlessly squelched the thought, diverting herself by checking her credit balance. One million credits had been added to her account, apparently from an ‘Admirer’.
Just forget him! You’ll never see him again. What’s past is past! Focus on the cash! Focus on the profit!
She headed back to the docking bay to ready her Cobra Courier for launch. As she approached her ship she could see that the growing puddle of green goo from the feline Captain’s battered Python had attracted the attention of a Galcop space dock official. A furious argument had started that halted abruptly when the Captain ‘found’ a large domination credit marker on the floor which he promptly handed to the official. The Captain appeared to be inquiring as to whether the official had dropped it. Obviously grateful, and now satisfied that the Python was space worthy despite his previous protestations, the official went on his way.
Rebecca grinned, she’d done similar things herself to get out of tight spots. You had to do whatever was required to get ahead in this life, she had that much in common with the feline Captain. You made your choices and followed your path. Her route was clear in front of her. The assassin was running on borrowed time.
I’ll have my revenge, whatever the cost!
Chapter 5
Chapter 5
It was a sparsely occupied region of space. Few stars graced the sky, and the region was completely devoid of nebulae. A tumble of asteroids orbited far from the dim little red dwarf that was the unremarkable centre of the system. A pair of planets tumbled erratically around an ever changing centre of gravity, followed around their eccentric orbit by the asteroids they seemed to be herding into place, both surfaces scarred from repeated meteorite impacts in the distant past.
The Galactic Census entry for the system had been written based on the findings of a passing seismic probe, and none of the original pioneers had ever bothered to visit the world in question. The probe had picked up unusual earthquake activity on both of the planets, assumed to be due to the gravitational pull of one planet on the other.
The original interpreters of the probe data noted that the double planets were not stable and, at some point in the future, would crash together and destroy themselves. Perhaps they would create a new planet or, more likely, just another asteroid belt. Odds had been calculated by distant astro-cartographers and bets were exchanged on the exact time and nature of this destruction. This led to the spurious entry on the Census, indicating that the planet sported an ‘Unusual Casino’. In reality both planets were barren rocks.
No one went there, for the very good reason that no one could ever leave. It was beyond the range of the seven light year witchspace range. The only way to reach it was by a galactic witchspace jump from the planet Rainza in Chart Seven – and there was no good reason to go; no stations, no trading posts, not even rock hermits.
All of this ended up giving this wretched hole of a system a rather grandiose title: ‘Oresrati. The planet at the end of the universe’.
Given these facts, the arrival of a ship via Galactic Witchspace jump was something of a rarity.
Jim wearily checked the flight instruments. The Constrictor was an odd ship; noisy, blisteringly fast in a straight line, but prone to excessive yaw when manoeuvring. In the hands of an experienced combat pilot it would have been lethal. Jim, on the other hand, found it a tiring ship to fly. He kept overshooting turns.
M5 standing by. M5 is capable of assuming all command, combat and flight functions.
The onboard flight computer had an unpleasant high pitched metallic rasping voice. It kept prompting Jim, asking whether or not he wanted to relinquish control of the ship.
“I’m fine M5,” Jim replied, irritated.
M5 is the latest in multi-tronic sophistication for onboard command and control. M5 is a product of the Daystrom institute for cybernetics. M5 has computed that this ship’s trajectory and flight dynamics could be optimised by 22%…
“That’s enough!” Jim snapped.
M5 standing by.
Maybe it was just his paranoia, but he wondered if the computer was taking a disdainful view of his flying skills. It sounded like it was sulking.
I’m damned if some computer is going to take over my job!
Jim had not been all that happy with some of the vague conversations he had overheard during his last stopover at Rainza. He’d heard tell of ghost stories and ships that never came back. No one ever went to Oresrati; there was no return. The only way out was a long and dangerous thruspace trip in suspended animation. You’d accelerate your ship to a significant fraction of the speed of light, climb into a stasis pod, wait for twenty years and hope your ship arrived at one of the nearest systems without breakdown. Needless to say, of those who had tried, none had returned; at least, not yet.
Jim’s hand hovered over the witchspace jump control. This could be a one way trip. Jim could be stuck in the Oresrati system. Jury rigging a galactic witchspace jump would not be easy without high tech facilities.
There was no logical way to make the decision. Either he gave up now, or continued with no guarantees. He pushed the control. The countdown began remorselessly. He braced himself for the nauseating feeling and closed his eyes.
Chart Eight, here we come…
The witchspace fold trace had led him through a number of galactic witchspace jumps, taking him far away from the familiar home systems of Chart One.
The trace co-ordinates led straight to the slightly larger of the two planets. Jim pushed the throttles up on the Constrictor and the noisy engine pushed the ship towards its destination at a rapid pace, quickly vanishing into the dim light of the distant red dwarf.
The scanner crackled, the screen clouding with static for a moment, before clearing again. Jim wasn’t sure what was causing it; the Constrictor had a number of systems that seemed to be not quite ‘finished’. He was concerned that a ship might be following him, however the scanner remained blank and a visual scan revealed no sign of a ship. It seemed he was alone.
Rebecca had found tracking the Galcop mission one of the toughest pieces of flying she’d ever attempted. The Dark Wheel information she’d been given had only indicated that the Galcop ship would be emitting a faint gravimetric signature from its prototype drive unit. It had provided no other means of tracking the ship. In fact, the information was coded in a most peculiar way. Rebecca had tried to decode the rest of it, but it was beyond her abilities. She’d settled for what she could get.
Quite how faint that gravimetric signature was going to be wasn’t indicated in the information either, and the task was compounded by the fact that the trace degraded quickly. Secondly, she couldn’t risk getting too close to the Galcop ship, so she’d been forced to stay out of scanner range and track visually. Third, whatever the Galcop ship was, it was fast. Quicker than anything she’d seen before. The brief glances she’d managed to get from her ship’s on-board telescope showed a classic design, but overall it was an unfamiliar shape. Fourth, the ship seemed to fly erratically, forcing her to resort to tediously triangulating the position from the faint gravimetric trace. She hated maths, even with the computer’s help.
Fortunately the modifications she’d managed to gain from the rather esoteric custom ship-shops – also mentioned in the Dark Wheel download – had allowed her to close the gap. The Cobra Courier was now very much an uber ship, beyond even the wildest dreams of the boy racers. Rebecca had been impressed at what they could do. She’d been impressed by the price too; she’d ended up spending more on the modifications than she originally had on the ship itself.
Her favourite modification was the stealth technology. Gravimetric warping. The ability to wrap electromagnetic radiation around the ship at will. It meant you were virtually immune to missile locks and practically invisible.
A cloaking device! For real! Who would have thought it!
It was a very handy device, its only drawback being that it caused a massive drain on the ships power supplies and couldn’t be operated indefinitely.
The ship wasn’t the only thing she had upgraded. She’d found the most remarkable gun she’d ever come across. It was an assault rifle. A rather illegal assault rifle.
Sweet vengeance, if I get a chance to use it… .
She turned her attention back to the astrogation console. The gravimetric trace had led her on a merry chase across the galaxy, beyond even the areas she had visited on some of her more adventurous trading runs. She’d been around the charts a couple of times, but always felt most comfortable back in Chart One. It seemed like ‘home’ somehow.
Finally the Galcop vessel had led her into the Rainza system in Chart Seven. On the screen the tiny spark of light that represented the Galcop ship flickered and disappeared. The telltale blue signature of a witchspace wormhole appeared; she wondered where she was going this time. When would the chase end?
She sighed and pulled up the triangulation screen on the computer and set course for the wormhole at full throttle.
“Here we go again.”
Jim was surprised to discover the larger of the two planets sported enough of an atmosphere for him to breathe unaided. He stood on the exposed gang-plank of the Constrictor, looking out across a barren and inhospitable landscape.
The ground was largely composed of rocky outcroppings, buried here and there in dunes of sand. Everything was cast in a deep red hue by the light of the red dwarf, which hung low in the sky like a huge arch of glowing embers. It was possible to look directly at it without hurting your eyes.
Overhead the sky was black, with the brightest stars still visible. Down towards the horizon the thin atmosphere slowly coloured the sky a deep purple. The horizon curved noticeably around him, the diameter of the planet being far smaller than most habitable worlds.
Behind him, looming almost menacingly in the sky, the other planet orbited close by, a mere few thousand miles away. It too was illuminated a deep red, with its craters and mountains easily visible. It was noticeably moving too; not fast enough to be seen with an idle look, but quickly enough to cause an occasional nervous glance over your shoulder as the pattern of light around you shifted subtly.
A faint wind blew sand past him; already the landing gear of the Constrictor was generating small dunes at each strut.
Here and there were lichen like growths of plant life. They all looked primitive and repellent, almost black in the dim light. It was clear that life had never really got going on Oresrati. The future didn’t look too inspiring either.
The gravity was low too, less than half a typical colonised planet, and less even than the environment aboard a station. It seemed strange that it had managed to retain a breathable atmosphere.
On the nearby horizon a group of caverns sat starkly, their mouths dark and forbidding. The locator trace was pointing directly towards them. He’d landed away a good distance from the caverns, having realised that landing too close would instantly alert anyone on the look out. He’d coasted in the last few thousand kilometres, engines off, with the Constrictor tumbling like an asteroid. He allowed the Constrictor to dive into Oresrati’s gravity well, only applying thrust to stop a fatal crash. Then he’d slowly crept the ship towards the trace, a few tens of metres above the ground, with only passive scanners engaged. So far he’d detected nothing save the trace from the file.
The ground trembled underneath him. It appeared the Census report on the frequent earthquakes was right on the money.
Jim clicked the remote activator, and the gang-plank retracted. He gathered together emergency rations, water supplies, a portable scanner and holstered a pistol. Then he began a slow bouncing trudge across the surface.
Rebecca’s Cobra Courier came out of the witchspace tunnel. Instinctively she flipped on the long range scan. It was part of her established routine whenever she arrived in a new system.
Always have an active witchspace lock. Just in case…
The long range scanner buzzed, an error message flashing at base of the screen. Rebecca frowned.
Out of range. Insufficient fuel for witchspace jump.
She looked back at the scanner. There was no way she had insufficient fuel! Her ship was full to the brim! It didn’t cost you anything to hitch on a witchspace wormhole! Had to be a glitch.
She told the computer to rescan.
Out of range. Insufficient fuel for witchspace jump.
Rebecca pulled up the Galactic chart. “Where the hell am I… ?”
Maybe a mis-jump or something… Oresrati? Chart Eight!
Rebecca had heard of Oresrati. Why the hell would anyone galactic jump here? It was a dead end!
There are no facilities on Oresrati! No way to recharge the galactic jump!
The galactic jump technology was a slightly curious one time overcharge of the witchspace drive, requiring a planet with a reasonable tech level to recharge and replace afterwards. They made use of a curious network of wormholes that had been discov
ered long ago by some of the early pioneers of witchspace travel. Some claimed these to be a natural function of witchspace itself, others that some long lost alien race had constructed them for purposes unknown, Still others claimed they were haunted passages between the stars, but few people took this seriously. Regardless, they were a handy mechanism for accessing hitherto unreachable parts of the galaxy.
“Oh wonderful.” She looked at the data cube that contained the Dark Wheel information. “You guys better have a way out of here.”
Rebecca watched the Galcop vessel land via her telescope, hovering her Cobra Courier a few hundred metres above the planet, and a few kilometres away behind it. She’d been careful to approach the landing site from the same direction as the warm light of the red dwarf. Her ship would be almost invisible from this angle, lost in the glare and haze on the horizon even without the cloaking device. The Galcop vessel had tried to look as inconspicuous as possible during the approach. Rebecca had copied the tactics, knowing her cloaking device wasn’t infallible.
Unfortunately, whilst she could just make out the ship, she couldn’t see whether or not anyone was disembarking, the red light made it impossible to see much detail and the occasional fine haze of wind blown sand was obscuring the ship completely at times. She was going to have to get down there.
She landed the Cobra Courier, secured it and gathered her things together. After all the essentials were stuffed into a small rucksack she grabbed the new rifle, sighted it on a nearby rock and then flipped it back onto her arm. All set.
She ventured out, grimacing at the unpleasant surroundings, making sure the cloaking device was still engaged. With no power going to the flight systems the cloaking device should be able to run for hours. She’d just have to remember where she had landed.
“Hold it there!” a voice called out of the darkness.
Jim had cautiously entered the cavern, scanning for intrusion detection systems with his portascan. It appeared the scanner hadn’t been very efficacious, it was still showing nothing at all. He had his pistol grasped in his other hand. A light shone towards him. He squinted into the glare, unable to make out anything at all.
