Angelfire

by Dietmar Wehr

  Angelfire

  By Dietmar Arthur Wehr

  Amazon Edition

  Copyright 2017 Non-Linear Visions, Inc.

  www.dwehrsfwriter.com

  Other books by the author (all these books except the complete series books are also available as audiobooks):

  The Synchronicity War Part 1

  The Synchronicity War Part 2

  The Synchronicity War Part 3

  The Synchronicity War Part 4

  The Synchronicity War Omnibus edition (complete series)

  The Retro War (stand alone novel set in the Sync War universe)

  Rumors of Glory (The System States Rebellion book 1)

  Rumors of Honor (SSR book 2)

  Rumors of Salvation (SSR book 3)

  The System States Rebellion (complete series)

  Empire in Crisis

  The Last Valkyrie

  Contents

  Other books by the author (all these books except the complete series books are also available as audiobooks):

  Chapter One:

  Chapter Two:

  Chapter Three:

  Chapter Four:

  Chapter Five:

  Chapter Six:

  Chapter One:

  Hoch stepped off his ship, took in a lungful of air and exhaled slowly. It was good to be back on Earth. There was something about natural air that was very refreshing; recycled ship air just wasn’t the same. As he savored the smells around him, he noticed one of the spaceport’s autonomous vehicles approaching. It would take him to the Admin building where he would check in.

  [You do this every time you land here, you know.]

  Was it his imagination, or was Keko, the artificial intelligence in the metal headband he wore, sounding annoyed? Probably just his imagination since Keko, by her own admission, was not a fully self-aware, sentient entity and therefore could not feel annoyance. He wondered if the audio connection where the headband touched the bone behind his ears was somehow distorting the acoustic vibrations of her voice.

  “I’m sure you’re right, but damn this air smells good! We humans haven’t quite evolved yet to the point where we prefer the sterile air and metal walls of a spaceship or station and I hope we never do get to that point.”

  [And yet you continue to go back out there.]

  The vehicle came to a stop in front of him. “Don’t have enough credits to retire, and I’m not tired of piloting a ship yet,” he said as he got in.

  [Quite understandable since you have me doing most of the actual piloting.]

  Hoch chuckled. “And you’re very good at it too, Keko. Any nibbles on our cargo yet?”

  [As a matter of fact, yes, there are enough offers to take all of the brandy, but the average price would be down from the last trip if you accept all of them.]

  “Hmm. Let’s take the offers with higher than average prices and hold the rest of the brandy for now. Once I finish at Admin, I’ll decide what to do with it.”

  [Understood.]

  The ride to the Admin building was pleasantly uneventful. It was early evening, and the sun would soon be setting. That was another sensory sensation that he missed after being in space for weeks at a time. He hoped he’d be finished with the red tape in time to catch the sunset, although if that gorgeous-looking woman who checked him in the last time he was here was on duty, he might miss the sunset.

  As it turned out, the clerk who dealt with him was a bored man and that woman was nowhere in sight. He decided to skip the chitchat with the Admin Clerk this time around.

  As he left the Arrivals check-in section, he found his way blocked by three men, all dressed in what he suspected was the latest corporate fashion.

  “Captain Racheengel,” said the man in the middle. It wasn’t a question.

  “That’s right. Did I fill out the wrong form or something?” he asked casually.

  “The Chairman of URS would like to have a word with you. Would you please come with us?”

  Who’s the new Chairman, Keko? Hoch thought the question, so the three men wouldn’t hear him.

  .

  [Bad news, Hoch. URS is now controlled by Traeger’s father.]

  Hoch controlled the urge to curse out loud. That was bad news. The three men were still waiting for his answer. “Do I actually have a choice, or are you just being polite?”

  The man in the middle showed the barest hint of a smile. “The Chairman said you might be reluctant to come along. He told us to tell you that all he wants to do is talk. Nothing bad will happen to you. We won’t force you to come with us, but if you refuse, you’ll suddenly find that you’ve filled out a LOT of the wrong forms, and you’ll be tangled in so much red tape that you won’t see the sun for days.”

  [He’s telling the truth as far as he knows it, Hoch.]

  That was small comfort. The new Chairman could have been lying when he told his minions that nothing bad would happen to Hoch. For a brief moment, Hoch was tempted to tell the minions to fuck off, but he hated red tape and knew URS could bury him in it even with Keko’s ability to hack into the URS network. It was also just possible that he wasn’t in any real physical danger. He had his stunner on his left arm. If the minions wanted to play rough, they’d be in for a surprise.

  “Okay, I’ll come along,” he said as casually as he could. The four of them left the building and entered a long, black air-limo that was soon cruising above the city. Hoch was expecting it to land on top of an office tower, but it quickly became obvious that they were heading out to somewhere in the countryside. After a 21-minute ride, the vehicle gently set down on a landing pad near a very impressive mansion that would have made any 19th century monarch jealous. A small automated ground vehicle brought the four of them to the building entrance. Eventually the four of them entered what seemed to be an office that was larger that some houses Hoch had been in. At the far end was a massive desk made of some kind of white stone. Sitting behind it was a man dressed in comfortable but clearly expensive clothes. He didn’t bother to get up.

  “Go ahead and have a seat, Captain Racheengel. Sergei, you stay, but your two associates may leave.”

  Hoch walked over to the empty chair that was facing the desk and sat down. Sergei, the minion who had done all the talking, stood quietly several meters behind him. Hoch turned his attention to his host. As with the two other URS Chairpersons he’d met, this man looked to be in his early 40’s but was probably older. He was watching Hoch intently.

  “I don’t know your name,” said Hoch carefully.

  After a slight hesitation, the man nodded. “Emmanuel Hanson Traeger. I’m now Chairman and CEO of URS. I’m guessing that you’re wondering why I wanted to talk with you.”

  Hoch decided to say nothing. Traeger was wearing a metallic headband very much like his own, and it was almost certainly capable of detecting lies just like Keko could. Hoch had learned the hard way that in a situation like this, telling the truth was better than trying to lie, and saying nothing was better than volunteering the truth.

  Traeger waited long enough to realize that Hoch wasn’t going to answer his question and swivelled his chair to the left.

  “Have a look at this recording, Captain,” he said as the section of the side wall transformed itself from wood panelling into a large video screen. Hoch found himself watching what obviously was surveillance video of his meeting with the previous URS Chairman several weeks back. He and Keko had discussed whether to erase this recording after the explosive decompression that caused the Chairman’s death. They’d decided to leave it since tampering with it would only increase the risk of drawing unwanted attention to his ship’s railgun as the cause of the decompression. When the recording stopped as Adenaur’s bloody body was being sucked out into space, Hoch found that he was sweating, a
nd his fists were clenched tight. Traeger’s expression was unreadable as he turned his attention back to Hoch.

  “How very interesting that the plexiglass wall behind my brother-in-law just happened to fail at that point, but that’s not why I wanted you to see the recording. You admitted to him that you had to cripple my son’s ship when he fired on your ship. I now want to hear you repeat that to me. Is that how it happened?”

  Hoch chose his words carefully as he replied. “Before leaving the Blue Horizon station, I spoke briefly with Captain Traeger and told him that I had some Dresden liquor as cargo on my ship. When I left the station, his ship immediately undocked and followed me on a parallel course with overtake velocity. His intention to board my ship and take my cargo was confirmed when his ship fired a missile at me. As you probably know, my ship has the ability to fire back, and I did.”

  Traeger did not respond right away. Hoch suspected that he was checking with his own headband device to see if he’d been told the truth. Traeger sighed and shook his head.

  “I warned him to be careful out there. He was too cocky for his own good and kept rolling the dice. He didn’t seem to understand that if he kept doing that, sooner or later he’d lose the bet.” Traeger closed his eyes for a few seconds. “I can’t blame a man for defending himself; however, that doesn’t alter the fact that you killed my son. Given that fact, it’s hard for me to see you continuing to benefit from property belonging to the company that I control. What makes it even harder is that I can’t even bury my son, because his body is drifting somewhere in deep space. Do you have data on his ship’s position, vector and velocity when it became crippled?”

  Do you have that data, Keko?

  [Affirmative, but if Traeger sends someone to find the wreck, they’ll know that we sealed the fate of any survivors of the missile exchange by decompressing every compartment when Whirlwind’s safety was no longer in question. That’s not self-defence anymore.]

  I know, but if I lie, he’ll detect it, and who knows how he’d react to that.

  “Yes, I have it. Shall I tell my headband to transmit it to yours?”

  Traeger nodded.

  Send it, Keko.

  [Data has been sent.]

  “I have it now. I suppose I should thank you for that, but under the circumstances, I don’t feel particularly thankful. With regards to your continued use of the ship, I see that the terms of the contract allow you to use the ship indefinitely, which strikes me as rather excessive. If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect that the contract was tampered with, but I have no way of proving that. There is, however, a clause that you may not be aware of. The contract says that URS has the option to substitute a comparable ship for Whirlwind, and in this case, comparable refers to the class of ship, not its capabilities. Therefore, I’m going to exercise that option and arrange for another Gazelle-class starfreighter, one that does not have any weapons, to be swapped for Whirlwind. Unlike my predecessor, who was quite ruthless, I’m not prepared to break the law to avenge my son, but I’ll use whatever legal means are available to make your life as difficult as possible.”

  When Hoch was certain that Traeger was finished speaking, he said, “I still have unsold cargo on board. Will I be allowed to sell it before having to give up the ship?”

  “I’ll give you just enough time to return to Whirlwind and get your personal belongings. If you haven’t sold all your cargo by then, whatever’s left unsold stays with the ship, and when I say sell your cargo, I do NOT mean the gold. That stays with the ship regardless. Is that clearly understood, Captain?”

  “It is. If this meeting is over, I’d like to head back now.”

  “One last thing before you go. My son was supposed to…shall we say ‘discourage’ traders from conducting business with the Dresden Colony. URS wants to own that station and the rights to exploit that planet’s biological resources, of which their brandy is just the tip of the iceberg. With my son’s ship gone, the company will have to find someone else to do the discouraging. I really hope that whoever that someone is, they’ll run across your ship someday. As for me, I hope I never see you again, Captain.”

  Hoch quickly got up and followed Sergei back to the air-limo. On the flight to the spaceport, Keko sold the rest of the cargo. Hoch’s credit balance was now almost half a million, but his mood didn’t reflect his net worth. Whirlwind was a unique ship that had saved his life both literally and figuratively more than once. And while he still had Keko and his stunner as personal property given to him by Mistress Fontaine, having to pilot an unarmed and far less capable ship was a huge blow, not to mention the loss of the gold bars.

  When the air-limo settled down next to Whirlwind, Hoch saw half a dozen men wearing URS logos on their backs waiting for him. Sergei followed him over to the leader of the group.

  “The Chairman said that Captain Racheengel can remove his personal belongings before you boys take control of the ship. Any cargo that’s been sold will be allowed to be unloaded. Have you sold all your cargo, Captain?”

  Hoch nodded. “Everything except the gold. I’ll get my things now.”

  “Fine,” said Sergei. “I’ll go with you to make sure that you only take your stuff and nothing else.”

  It didn’t take Hoch long to pack his things, which included the two tranquilizer dart guns and spare ammo clips he’d taken off the security personnel on Thule Station. By the time he and Sergei left the ship, the robotic cargo handlers had finished unloading all the sold cargo. Hoch gave the ship a final, affectionate pat as he walked away. Keko had called for a spaceport ground vehicle to pick him up, and Hoch saw that it was approaching. He turned back to look at Sergei to make sure there was nothing else he needed to do.

  “Are we done?” he asked.

  Sergei nodded. “Yeah, we’re done, and speaking just for myself, I think the Chairman was way too lenient with you. If you had killed my son, self-defence or not, you wouldn’t still be alive.”

  “I think that speech of his back in his office was for the cameras, which I’m sure were recording the whole thing,” said Hoch. “He’s the third chairperson of URS that I’ve dealt with face to face. The other two were willing to kill when they thought it was justified, and I think Chairman Traeger is cut from the same cloth. He’s just too smart to say so out loud. You remember that about your boss if you ever screw up. People like him and his brother-in-law demand loyalty, but they don’t give it. By the way, where’s my new ship?”

  Sergei must have been expecting that question because he pointed without any hesitation to a ship that stood about half a kilometer away. It was too far for Hoch to see clearly. He queried Keko, whose built-in optics could zoom closer.

  [It is a Gazelle-class starfreighter, Hoch, but I can already tell it’s not in as good a condition as Whirlwind.]

  Why do I get the feeling that this new ship will be barely spaceworthy? he asked. Keko did not reply. When the ground vehicle stopped in front of him, he threw his gear inside and got in. The vehicle accepted his verbal instructions to take him to the other ship.

  [I’ve established communications with the ship’s auto-pilot. It’s called Prosperity Colony. Several of its systems are barely operating within acceptable tolerances. The maneuvering engines are overdue for scheduled maintenance. Life support is not working at 100% efficiency. There are other structural and equipment issues of lesser severity. I can confirm that URS has officially acknowledged your right to use this ship as its Captain.]

  “At least Traeger is keeping his word. I was afraid he would renege on another ship as soon as URS took possession of Whirlwind. On the other hand, letting me use this pile of junk actually serves his desire for payback because I’ll have to spend some of my profits, maybe a lot of my profits, just to keep this rust-bucket flying. And the only guaranteed way for me to keep making profits will be to continue importing Dresden brandy. I think Traeger hopes I’ll do just that, so his son’s replacement can blow this ship to smithereens. If I take this ship some
where else, I’ll have a hell of a time getting it back into decent shape.”

  [Ceridian Station should be able to do a lot of the work. Perhaps if you sent a query to them asking what they need, you could buy that equipment and trade it to them for repairs and maintenance work.]

  Hoch pondered that as the vehicle pulled up in front of the ship’s hatch. “Yeah, it wouldn’t hurt to ask them. Can you send the relevant data you’ve just collected and ask Ceridian what they can do and what they need from me?”

  [Affirmative and done.]

  Hoch got out of the vehicle and extracted his gear. “Might as well get settled and see what the inside looks like.”

  A half hour later, the sun had just set as he re-emerged from the ship and sighed. Not only was the ship in poor shape, it looked like it on the inside. The cockpit avionics were less sophisticated than Whirlwind’s, which shouldn’t have surprised Hoch. If URS would go to all the trouble of upgrading just about everything else on Whirlwind, why wouldn’t they upgrade its avionics as well? It wasn’t difficult to figure out that his current credit balance would not be enough to fix everything that needed fixing, let alone upgrade the ship. And come to think of it, why would he upgrade the ship at all when URS still had legal title to it? Traeger would love to find some pretext to yank the ship back after Hoch had spent all his credits upgrading it. The more he thought about it, the less appealing actually using this ship was. But if he let URS have it back, he’d be without a ship and essentially grounded. As he leaned back against the ship and looked out at the brightly lit spaceport landing pads and buildings, he heard Keko’s voice.