by Dan Worth
‘Thanks.’
‘I’ll make us both some coffee. That should wake you up.’
‘Yeah. Do you think you could inject the caffeine straight into my veins?’
He pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head to clear it, then stumbled off to the shower. Anita watched him go and laughed to herself as she busied herself with making the drinks.
After a couple of large coffees and a decent breakfast in the hotel restaurant, Isaacs felt a little more human. He still hadn’t succeeded in penetrating Anita’s cheerful optimism to convince her that accompanying him might be a bad idea. In the end he gave in to her persistence and let her come, and cursed himself for being so weak. If anything happened to her he’d never forgive himself.
With his head a little clearer they left the hotel and made their way back to the central docking hub and the Profit Margin. Once on board, Isaacs sat in his pilot’s seat and studied the figures on the piece of paper that had been planted on him. He punched the numbers into the ship’s navigation system and squinted at the map of the Hadar system it produced on screen for him.
‘Hmm,’ he said and zoomed in on the waypoint it had highlighted.
‘What?’ said Anita, craning over his shoulder to have a look.
‘This waypoint’s in a pretty out of the way location, as I suspected. It should place us in low orbit around the fourth planet of the Hadar A star. It’s a gas giant planet of one point five Jovian masses, so there’ll be plenty of EM, alpha and gamma radiation interference to mask our presence from long range sensors. The exit point should also mean that our arrival will be invisible to the bases in the system, and I doubt that there’ll be many ships around, except for the freighters going to those power arrays in the inner system.’
‘So we won’t be seen?’
‘Not unless someone is specifically looking for us, no. Of course that means that no help will arrive either if things don’t exactly go to plan.’
‘Oh. That’s true. Mmm, what sort of defences does this ship have then?’
‘Well, it’s got a pretty high rated shield system for a ship of this size, and she’s fast and manoeuvrable.’
‘No, I meant guns.’
‘Yeah… guns,’ said Isaacs looked uneasy. ‘Guns were optional. I uh… couldn’t really afford them at the time that I bought her so we haven’t got any.’
‘What, no guns? You’re kidding! Even your basic hauler has a little defensive turret or something.’
‘No, look I had planned to buy a decent setup, but then I ended being forced to promise my money to that Bennett guy, thanks to the very woman I came here to find who’s hiding out with a bunch of pirates. So no, I haven’t got any guns.’
‘Ah I see. Well look on the bright side: at least they won’t get jittery if we’re unarmed.’
‘True, and trust me, I am a damn good pilot. I’ve escaped much worse than pirates before, believe me. Anything goes wrong, I’ll be out of there so fast they won’t be able to do a thing about it.’
‘See,’ she said. ‘I told you I’d be fine. How long do we have?’
‘Says eleven hundred standard here. It’s nine thirty now, so we’ve got plenty of time. I’d like to get there early though, just in case. Get yourself strapped in and we’ll go,’ he said and began powering up the ship.
Half an hour later the Profit Margin emerged from hyperspace above the gas giant Inyo, the fourth planet out from Hadar A. Isaacs immediately checked the ship’s sensors for signs of any ships in the local volume.
‘Anyone waiting for us?’ Anita asked as he studied the readout displays.
‘Nope, can’t see anything. Local space is clear of other ships, though there are plenty moving to and from the inner system. Of course they could be running silent or hiding behind the planet or one its moons…’
‘So we sit here and wait?’
‘Yeah, I’ve entered the jump co-ordinates for Barstow Station if anything should go wrong. They make one wrong move and we are definitely not sticking around.’
Isaacs made sure that the ship had settled into a stable orbit, then sat back in his chair. The planet revolved almost imperceptibly beneath them, its layered, wine coloured clouds bisected by the terminator line between day and night. The Profit Margin was orbiting towards the night side. In this low orbit, the planet was so close that its curved surface appeared as a flat plain of cloud. The thin arc of the faint ring system rose at a forty five degree angle across their view. A few of the larger satellites and a couple of shepherd moons were visible in accompanying orbits.
‘It is beautiful isn’t it?’ said Anita, gazing at the gigantic eye of a storm passing beneath them in Inyo’s cloud-tops
‘It certainly is,’ Isaacs replied. ‘It’s what keeps me out here I guess. Still, we have an hour to kill, so I guess you can look at the view all you want.’
Almost an hour later and the pinging of the ship’s sensors roused them both from the torpor that had overcome them in the darkness of Inyo’s night side. Isaacs leaned over and looked the display.
‘Company?’ said Anita.
‘Yeah, the ship’s detected a warp wake from a medium sized vessel. It just came out of the sensor shadow of the fifth moon and it’s headed straight for us.’
‘That has to be them.’
‘Yep, I’d say so. Here they come.’
The Hidden Hand vessel emerged from hyperspace five kilometres off the port bow of the Profit Margin and immediately came about to face them. It was a corvette class vessel, approximately twice the size of Isaacs’ ship. It’s sleek, flattened shape had been heavily modified to accommodate a greater range of weapons and sensors which had been bolted to the outside of its hull. A Hidden Hand logo was emblazoned on the cowling of the engine section.
‘They’re locking weapons and scanning us,’ said Isaacs, matter-of-factly. ‘I suppose they want to make sure we are who we’re supposed to be and not local law enforcement. Hell, I’d do the same.’
The corvette came to a relative stop half a kilometre away, forward weapons fully trained on the Profit Margin. Someone on board opened a comms channel, voice only.
‘Independent vessel Profit Margin, this is the Hidden Hand corvette Pre-Emptive Strike. Broadcast your cockpit video feed and ID code. We want to make sure we’re dealing with the right people here.’ It was a woman’s voice, confident and businesslike.
‘Roger that Pre-Emptive Strike,’ Isaacs responded. ‘Broadcasting now.’ He looked into the tiny cockpit camera and tried not to look nervous.
‘Okay that’s good,’ replied the Hidden Hand vessel. ‘Although considering that you’re unarmed you’d have to be pretty stupid to try anything.’ There was chuckle from the corvette. ‘Alright. You’re sure you weren’t followed here?’
‘Yeah,’ said Isaacs. ‘I scanned the area for ships as soon as we arrived. We’ve been here for about an hour and you’re the first vessel that we’ve detected in Inyo space. The ship’s got a pretty good sensor suite, so not much gets past me.’
‘Good. Here’s the deal. You slave your navigation system to ours. We’re going to make a series of short jumps to throw anyone off the scent then we’ll proceed to our base. We’ve already determined that there are no tracking devices on your ship, so I’m fairly satisfied that you’re not a government spy, however I must insist on you maintaining complete broadcast silence until we get there. No radio or hypercom, and no accessing the local networks for any reasons. I can’t have you broadcasting your location to all and sundry. Alright?’
‘Understood, I’m slaving our nav system to yours, jump when you’re ready.’
‘Good, Pre-Emptive out.’
The corvette came about, turning through one hundred and eighty degrees so that the fat cluster of engine exhausts at its rear faced the Profit Margin. The two ships now controlled by the navigational systems of the pirate vessel, they jumped in unison, the night-side clouds of Inyo disappearing into whirling blackness.
They
emerged from hyperspace a moment later above a blasted ember of a world. Isaacs checked the system map and identified the hellish world as Furnace, innermost planet of the Hadar A star. Tidally locked in a close orbit around the blue giant, one hemisphere of Furnace remained constantly molten from the heat of the star. As he regarded the blistering plains of liquid rock, Isaacs pondered the wisdom of emerging so close to the shielded energy arrays orbiting just outside Furnace’s orbit. He didn’t have long to wonder though, as the Pre-Emptive Strike quickly re-aligned itself and jumped again, wrenching the planet from view.
They dropped out of hyperspace again after another few minutes, this time into the asteroid belt between the sixth and seventh planets. They were in the shadow of one of the larger rocks whose pock-marked and misshapen form loomed over the two tiny ships like a mountain of iron. Isaacs noticed some additional commands being passed to his ship, raising its shields to maximum before they jumped again.
This third jump took much longer. For almost half an hour the blackness of hyperspace rushed around the two ships in their shared envelope.
‘Where do you think we’re headed?’ said Anita, as Isaacs brooded.
‘Back across to the B star I’d say. I think our new friends aboard the Pre-Emptive Strike are about to try something extraordinarily dangerous.’
‘Oh?’
‘I think we’re about to emerge very close to the star. I could be wrong, but they raised our shields to maximum. Personally I’m more worried about what the star’s gravity well will do to the jump drive, though I suspect they’ve pulled this trick before.’
‘They must know what they’re doing, surely? I mean, they know this system, right?’
‘Yeah, I suppose. Just don’t like someone else flying my ship, I guess.’
Isaacs’ suspicions were well founded. Half an hour into their jump, the two ships dropped back out of hyperspace just beyond the corona of Hadar B. The blinding split second before the cockpit photochromic systems adjusted left both Isaacs and Anita with a green afterimage that they both tried to blink away. Through the darkened window they could see what appeared as a vertical wall of blue-white incandescence. Blinding loops of blazing plasma rose from the firestorm of fusion towards them, as the shields glowed from the deluge of superheated charged particles. The two ships began to come about to face away from the star.
‘Shit!’ said Isaacs in alarm. ‘We really are dealing with a bunch of crazy fuckers here. We’re much too close to the star! Christ, our shields can’t stand more than minute of this before the fucking ship melts.’
‘Still… the gravity and the output of the star ought to mask our next jump providing the envelope doesn’t catastrophically collapse,’ said Anita. ‘My Dad once told me about a friend of his that used it to escape from some unwanted attention in Sirius.’
‘Pretty neat trick if we survive,’ said Isaacs and checked the HUD. ‘Thank god, the jump drive’s ramping up again.’
Hadar B vanished from view. Isaacs and Anita breathed a sigh of relief.
The Pre-Emptive Strike now took them on a looping course that arced far above the plane of the ecliptic to emerge behind a lonely asteroid in a high slingshot orbit around Hadar B. The ships came to a halt close to the rock, visible only as a shadow against the star-field before the Pre-Emptive Strike opened a tight-beam comms channel to the Profit Margin.
‘Alright. So far, so good.’
‘Apart from the stunt you pulled jumping in close to the star. I damn near had to hose down the cockpit after that one, thanks.’
‘Sorry about that, we were hoping that anyone following us wouldn’t be crazy enough to try it. I assure you; we had the whole thing worked out to within acceptable risks. We figured that the drive on your ship would be able to stand the gravity incline.’
‘Did you factor in me having a heart attack?’
There was a chuckled from the corvette. ‘Okay, well we’re just going to sit here for a moment and make sure that no-one knows we’re here before we finally jump to our base.’
‘No more surprises, please,’ said Isaacs.
‘Well, I can’t really promise you that, but I promise you we won’t be jumping on top of any more stars. We’ll be leaving in a few minutes, Pre-Emptive out.’
After a moment the two ships jumped for a final time to emerge in the Kuiper belt around the Hadar system. Here, the twin stars blazed against the background of the galaxy as distant suns, their heat and light barely washing against the dark and sparsely scattered sub-planetary objects of frozen rock and ice.
One such tiny world loomed out of the darkness ahead of them. As Isaacs looked closer he could just make out signs of life. Against the background of jagged ice cliffs, the oblong shape of a docking port was just visible in the darkness. As the two ships approached, faintly glowing lights appeared within that angular mouth. The Pre-Emptive Strike led them inside, heavy blast doors sliding shut behind them like metallic jaws as they were swallowed by the base. Once inside, the base’s systems took over and directed them to a landing space inside a large, brightly lit hangar filled with a bewildering range of ships. Hovering on AG against the artificial gravity of the base, the Profit Margin slotted itself neatly into its assigned space, settling gently onto its landing gear.
Isaacs reached over the command console and began powering down the vessel. ‘Well,’ he said to Anita. ‘Shall we go and meet our gracious hosts?
Isaacs and Anita stepped out of the Profit Margin’s access ramp into the echoing space of the hangar. The cavernous space was strangely quiet, save for the sound of the Profit Margin’s engines gently plinking as they cooled and approaching footsteps.
A ragged assortment of beings led by a human woman rounded the nearest vessel. Black hair, tied back along her head in plaited cornrows framed a brown face with a hard expression. Her battered fatigues were adorned with tools and a couple of weapon holsters, from one of which she produced an automatic pistol and pointed it casually at Isaacs.
‘Alright flyboy, hold it right there. Let’s see if you are who you say you are.’ She motioned to a couple of her comrades, a man and a Hyrdian male. They came forward with weapons and a hand held scanning device which they pointed at Isaacs’ head at close range, before patting him down and scanning his clothes with another device. The Hyrdian plucked out one of his hairs by the roots and placed that in a separate piece of kit.
Isaacs was experiencing a certain amount of déjà vu. This wasn’t the first time people had taken an interest in the contents of his skull. The last time had been aboard the Churchill.
‘He’s clean, Maria,’ said the Hyrdian in accented English.
‘Better do her as well, just in case,’ said the woman named Maria and indicated Anita with her gun barrel, though she never took her eyes off Isaacs. ‘There’s no telling what she might have picked up.’
‘Nice to meet you too Maria,’ said Isaacs. ‘If we’re your guests I’d hate to see how you treat your enemies.’
‘Don’t take it personal,’ she replied. ‘We have to be cautious about security. And it’s Captain Velasquez unless I say so, alright?’
‘Sure, whatever. You’re the one with the gun after all.’
‘Smart man.’
She was sizing him up, he could tell, waiting for him to make a wrong move. He tried to look as relaxed as possible. He let his eye wander around the hangar over the assorted ships docked here, and at the walls of the hangar itself. It didn’t look like a human construction at all. It reminded him more of the Nahabe sections of the Labyrinth. There were a couple of small Nahabe craft docked here as well. Their angular, almost featureless forms contrasted with the sleek, beweaponed outlines of the other ships that they sat amongst.
‘She’s clean,’ said the Hyrdian. Velasquez nodded.
‘Alright, you two. Since you both appear to be who you say you are and aren’t carrying anything you shouldn’t you’d better follow me. Oh and by the way, may I be the first to welcome you to the Hidden
Hand, Captain Isaacs.’
‘What is this place?’
‘This? This is our home, it’s an old Nahabe facility, but we decided to call it Port Royal. It was kind of a joke at first, but the name stuck.’
‘Port Royal?’
‘Old pirate haunt, back on Earth.’
‘I see, so how come the Nahabe gave up one of their facilities to a bunch of pirates?’
‘No-one told you, huh?’ she glanced at Anita. ‘You’ll see. Besides, we’re more like privateers, or freedom fighters. Some might even wrongly call us terrorists. Come on this way. I think someone is waiting for you.’
She marched off across the hangar towards a series of blast doors set into the far wall. As they approached, the doors began to slide open. The slight figure of a woman was visible in the corridor beyond. She stood with arms folded, wearing tattered fatigues like the others, her collar length black hair half shrouding her face. A flash of recognition crossed her face as they approached which developed into a lop-sided grin. Isaacs would recognise his wife anywhere.
‘Hello Cal, so you finally tracked me down.’
‘Yeah, I figured you and I had a lot to talk about, that and the money you owe me,’ he replied, his voice laden with sarcasm. ‘Four hundred thousand, I seem to remember.’
‘Cal, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘You don’t?’ he sneered, disbelievingly
‘No. Look, it’s good to see you. I hoped you’d find me eventually. I trust Anita has been looking after you?’
‘Err yeah. You two… know each other?’
‘She didn’t tell you who she is?’
He turned to look at Anita, who grinned sheepishly. ‘She said she was on some sort of gap year, that her father is a freighter captain…’ he tailed off.
‘Well, the second part is true. Anita’s father Viresh ran supplies for us, but she’s one of our operatives out there in the Commonwealth, our eyes and ears.’
