Then I waited some more, but this time with a large mug of coffee. At last I reached the inescapable conclusion that suit man was not coming back. I made some more coffee, and thought about my options. Here I was, secretly in the heart of the Imperium’s incursion into The Merchant Prince’s quadrant. This was, without doubt, an unrivalled opportunity to gather unique intelligence on the situation and the forces being stationed here. Equally without doubt was that this also provided me with an unrivalled opportunity to get myself killed.
I watched the vidscreens for a bit longer, listening to the random chatter over the comms channels. There was no hint of any suspicion that the Imperium was aware of my presence. More coffee was called for, and I got out of the pilot’s chair to fetch some.
That of course was fatal. Luckily, of course, not for me. The door at the far end of the storage yard flew open, and suit man ran in waving his arms. I couldn’t hear a word he was saying, of course, but he looked quite agitated. I leant on the flight console and looked at him curiously through the forward screen.
My curiosity was quickly sated when the entire wall of the yard exploded in a mass of brick and dust, and an Imperial main battle tank drove first over the rubble and then over the man in the suit, before turning its attention on me.
“Hell’s teeth!” I swore, and hit the defence controls. The screens snapped into place, and not a moment too soon as the tank immediately opened fire. The Speedbird rocked as the shells bounced off the defence screens, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Too soon of course, as the shells hit the huge stack of salvage instead and the entire mass toppled over on top of me.
The sound of scrap slamming into the hull was louder, more discordant and more disturbing than the free form jazz I had been playing in my room back at Star Fleet Base to annoy the man in the room next door to me.
I screamed in terror and horror. The vidscreens blacked out as the cameras were either blocked or smashed. More explosions followed, but the Speedbird seemed to be undamaged, perhaps protected by the scrap pile. At last, everything went quiet, except for the unconcerned chatter on the comms channels.
I spun the dials on the comms unit, trying to find something from the tank: but I couldn’t find any transmissions at all. That was more worrying than anything else as it implied that the Imperium was now employing communications on a wavelength that I couldn’t receive. Still, there was one possibility. I ran down the stairs to the airlock and opened the entry port. Dust and some small pieces of metal fell into the port, but nothing else moved. I listened carefully, trying not to breath. I could hear the revving of a large combustion engine – that must be the tank. Then footsteps.
“That was a good job, Chief,” came a voice from outside. I recognised the speech pattern of a Rigellian, presumably in Imperial service. “Good shooting.”
“Do you think there’s a chance it survived?” This was unmistakeably the tone of an officer.
“Under that lot? Not a chance. I’m not sure that we’d even get the tank out from under that pile. An elderly space scoutship? Never in a thousand years.”
A cold shiver ran down my spine. How bad a mess was I in now?
“Right. We can report back to the general, then. But I don’t think that there’s much more to be done here.”
“How about the civilians on the site, Chief?”
“What civilians?”
“The yard owner and his staff.”
“What civilians, corporal? We were told, no witnesses.”
“Understood, Chief.”
I felt sad, momentarily, for the owner of the yard and whoever had worked for him. But as I grimly realised that I could well be entombed under a pile of second hand washing machines, a less than elegant fate by any standards, I could not afford to be too bothered. I waited by the hatch until I heard first a prolonged bust of small arms fire, then a deep rumble as the tank started up and drove away.
What to do? I decided to start with coffee. Lots more coffee. When I had drunk that I sat in the pilot’s chair and brooded. Pushing the power lever, I tried to lift the ship. But the Speedbird was too firmly embedded under the scrap to move, although she did her best. I decided not to strain the engines, and think of another solution.
Back in the airlock, I knelt down and peered into the heaps of scrap without much hope. But suddenly, I sawd that there was a gap between some of the wrecked machines. Not a big gap, and a gap that twisted like a strand of DNA: but a gap that would allow a pilot who was sufficiently motivated to crawl through and escape. I was sufficiently motivated, so I did. There was one nasty moment when my flight suit snagged on a jagged edge, but it tore free and I slid out into the open air.
“Free!” I gasped. The loud click as a safety catch was released behind my head suggested otherwise. “Not again,” I groaned.
“Who are you?” The voice was aggressive and female, often a dangerous combination, in my experience.
“Frank.”
“And what are you, Frank?”
“I don’t understand.”
The business end of a deadly weapon bored against my skull, just beside the right ear. I sighed heavily. It was going to be that sort of day again.
“Are you working for the Imperium?”
“How many chances to I get to answer?”
“One. So, choose well, Frank.”
“No. I’m not.” I closed my eyes and waited for the bang. After a full minute had gone past, I started to think that I might not be killed out of hand. Slowly I realised that the gun was being pulled away from my head. “Why is no one ever pleased to see me?” I asked.
“Maybe it’s your personal hygiene?”
“Look, I can get insults anywhere. Can I get up?”
“No. What are you doing here?”
“Good question. I’m no longer sure myself. But generally speaking, I’m trying to get home intact.”
“Okay. And where is home?”
“The Free Union.”
“All right, you can get up. Why were you inside that collapsed pile of washing machines?”
“Some Imperium bully shot at me with a tank, and it all collapsed on me.” I was aware that there was a sort of whine in my voice, and didn’t care for it. I coughed, and tried to put on more macho tones. “So I’m looking for something to pull it all away so that I can go home.”
I got to my knees on the filthy floor of the yard. When I wasn’t shot, I risked looking around. Behind me was a diminutive girl who would, in other circumstances, have been considerably attractive. At this moment her charms were entirely obscured by the ridiculously large gun she was still pointing at me.
“You’ve a spaceship under there?”
“Annoyingly, yes,” I confessed.
“I know where there’s a tractor here.”
“Excellent!” I enthused.
“And in return for a small favour, I will help you shift the scrap from your ship.”
“I don’t have much money on me.”
“Not that.”
“Errrrrr….”
“Not that either. When you lift ship I want you to take me with you.”
“Why?”
“Because if the Imperium take me alive, they will kill me.”
That seemed a sensible reason to want to leave. “Why?” I asked.
“I’m a Free Union agent. And no, I can’t show you any proof.”
“Who do you report to?” I asked. Suddenly the balance of power between us was shifting.
“You wouldn’t know him.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“Colonel Rosto.”
“You work for Rosto? That slimy, devious, self-serving git?”
“I see you know him too then, Frank. I’m Annabelle.”
“I would like to say that I’m pleased to meet you Annabelle, but…”
“Come on. The equipment is parked in that shed.” She pointed at a nearby industrial unit. The doors were slightly open. Annabelle grabbed my sleeve and pulled me towards the d
oors at an oblique angle, leaving me with no choice but to abandon my clothes or follow her. At the doors she poked the business end of her gun through the doors, then jumped inside with a loud shout. I rolled my eyes in horror and followed her inside the deserted unit.
“Open one door, Frank,” she hissed at me.
I pushed one door wide, and she started searching the desk at the side of the unit, looking for something. Opening the door let some light in. “Oh look,” I said, pointing at the big vehicle closest to the doors. “We’ve got a brand new harvester.”
“And I’ve got a brand new key!” she exclaimed, waving the keys in triumph. She ran to the cab, jumped in a fired up the beast. I have to confess that I was quite impressed. Annabelle pressed the accelerator, let in the clutch and the huge thing rumbled out through the doorway as I hastily pulled the second door aside. I ran across the yard in her wake as she drove towards the piles of scrap washing machines that covered the Speedbird. Typically she powered right through an enormous puddle and splattered me with more mud than I can ever remember seeing. By the time I had wiped my face clean enough to actually see anything, washing machines were flying in all directions like minature missiles. In order to avoid the shower, I fled past the green monster and took refuge by crouching down on the other side of the heap and waited for the noise to stop.
“Frank! Frank! Where are you?” She was querulous rather than concerned.
I got to my feet. “Here.”
“Why?”
“I was trying not to get hit by a ballistic washing machine. Are you coming?” The Speedbird had emerged from the heap of scrap, and I was busy clearing the access to the airlock.
“Coming.”
Annabelle jumped down from the huge green harvester and slung her gun over her shoulder. She squeezed through the gap I had opened up and followed me into the airlock. She stared around in a combination of surprise and distaste.
“What’s this? A space going rabbit hutch?”
I was a bit affronted. The Speedbird might be elderly, outdated and outclassed by more modern scout ships, but it had got me out of a number of scrapes and I had some mild affection for the ship. “If you don’t want to come, then you don’t need to. Stay here and wait for Colonel Starker.”
“No, it’s fine,” she said hastily. “I was a bit surprised, that’s all. It’s the smallest space ship I’ve ever been in.”
I reached past her and closed the airlock, checking that the door was fully locked, then I grabbed the handrail on the circular staircase and ran up to the living quarters. Annabelle followed more slowly and as I went into the flight deck I could hear her muffled snort of astonishment and disgust. I started the engines and began the pre-flight checks.
At last I ran up the engines, and started the launch procedure.
“What’s that?” cried Annabelle, pointing over my shoulder at the forward vidscreen. I hadn’t heard her come onto the Flight deck because I was so busy with the checks. Now I looked up at the vidscreen. The battle tank was back. crunching across rubble and smashing down more of the wall of the storage yard as it came. The tank tilted and rocked as the tracks chewed into and over the remains of the wall.
“Hurry!” yelled Annabelle, clearly frightened.
I fed power into the defence screens and pushed the throttle as far forward as I could. The Speedbird howled and rocked wildly.
“You didn’t clear all of the landing gear!” I accused her.
Part of the gear freed itself, and the Speedbird tilted over at forty five degrees, coincidentally allowing the first shell from the tank to pass underneath us and explode harmlessly among the scrap. The vibration shook the rest of the gear free, and the Speedbird lifted off at a dangerously strange angle. I fought the controls, and tried to ignore the sound of Annabelle being violently sick behind me.
“Going up!” I shouted, as I managed to turn the Speedbird to point in the direction of its travel and the airspeed increased. Behind us the tank raised the barrel of its gun as high as it could, but could not follow our progress. There was to be no peace and quiet though. The comms channel opened up.
“Calliope Control to all air defence units. Unauthorised departure alert. Assumed hostile, attack on sight.”
Annabelle leant over the flight console, offering me a wonderful view of the vomit stains on her jacket. I tried not to breath in and pushed her gently out of the way.
“They are coming! They are coming!” she shouted.
“Well? We are going,” I told her.
Her fears were of course justified. Several local pursuit craft were swarming up from the space port, following us – no doubt with evil intent. I armed the rear defence pods, and kept going out of the atmosphere.
“Aren’t you going to take evasive action?” Annabelle demanded.
“Just slow us down,” I said absently, watching the small craft get closer.
“But they are catching up!”
“Can’t slow them down until they do.”
My hand hovered over the space mine release. I waited until the proximity alert alarm went off, and released the last of the on board mines. The Speedbird trembled as the explosions started, and I changed course as we left the last of the atmosphere behind.
“The asteroids! Look out!” shouted Annabelle hysterically.
“Shut up! I’m concentrating,” I snarled at her.
I tweaked the thrusters and the Speedbird aimed squarely at the asteroid belt, as I let the speed fall away. Behind us, the local pursuit craft – those that were left after the space mines had hit them hard - closed the range.
“Missile lock!” screamed Annabelle. “Do something!”
“I am,” I said, keeping my attention fixed on the closing asteroids and missiles.
At what seemed to me to be the last moment I hit the manoevering jets and the main power. The Speedbird lifted over the belt of space debris and accelerated to transition speed. As soon as the dial hit green I engaged the hyperdrive and space folded around us in complicated patterns.
Annabelle mopped her face. “Can they follow us?”
“No.” I relaxed in my chair. “Coffee?”
“How can you be so calm? They nearly had us!”
“I’ve had a lot of practice. Being a pilot in the Reconnaissance Unit is mostly poking your nose into places where it isn’t wanted and then running away as fast as you can. Welcome to my world.”
“Frankly, Frank, you can keep it. Espionage is much safer.”
I left the flight deck and headed for the tiny kitchen area. Annabelle followed me and shook her head when I offered her some fresh, steaming coffee.
“Where are we going?” she asked. “I didn’t see you program a destination into the navcomm.”
“I didn’t need to. There’s a ‘return to last co-ordinate’ routine I engaged on the flight controls. I need to report back to the Emporium before we can go back to Star Fleet.”
“In that case, I’m going to get a shower and some sleep. You can stay on the flight deck and do piloty things.” Annabelle pointed towards the door. I made her wait while I made a very basic cheese sandwich, then returned to the flight deck. There were enough enroute tasks to keep me busy, including filing a report with Star Fleet Base. Not that I got any sort of meaningful or useful reply of course, just a computer generated acknowledgement.
Annabelle joined me just as the Speedbird dropped out of hyperspace. Washed and cleaned, and wearing the remains of my wardrobe held together with her own belt, she looked astonishingly attractive. However, knowing that she worked for Rosto left me cold and unmoved by her charms.
“What were you doing on Calliope, then?” I asked her.
“Probably the same as you are doing here, Frank. Looking for some missing Viper class scouts that The Free Union has paid a lot of money for.”
“Did you find them?”
“No. I found where they had been though. The Emporium had been holding them on a reserve spaceport on Calliope, but moved them out
– before the Imperium arrived.”
I thought her tone suggested something. “You think that someone knew the Imperium was coming?”
“Frank, I think something smells. Besides you, of course. We should have been given those ships weeks ago. We need them very badly to patrol the border and monitor the Imperium’s movements. Star Fleet is building StarDestroyers as fast as they can, but scouts and frigates are needed really badly.”
“I’ve been told that I can take delivery of the Vipers if I report to the CEO with the information I gleaned from Calliope.”
“Then let’s get there fast and see what happens.”
I pointed at the vidscreen. “There’s the Emporium now.” The huge ship hung still against the backdrop of stars.
Annabelle peered into the screen. “Strange. There are no escorts.”
“I think they are cloaked. Last time, several ships appeared out of empty space as I approached.”
“Oh.”
I opened the comms channel and sent the identification code the CEO had given me. There was no reply. I sent the code again and again without response. I increased the power and accelerated towards the Emporium.
“Shouldn’t we go a bit slower?” asked Annabelle.
“I’d rather be in a position for a quick getaway.”
The huge Emporium came closer and still there was no response on the comms channel. No ships appeared and the proximity alert stayed silent. At last I cut the power, applied the reverse thrusters and let the Speedbird drift slowly along the Emporium.
“See anything?” I asked Annabelle.
“No,” she replied, scanning the vidscreens.
The comms computer beeped suddenly, making us both jump.
“An incoming message,” I explained. Annabelle relaxed, and continued to watch the vidscreens. I opened the message and read it aloud. “To all Free Union units. Take notice that we have been Officially Informed by Diplomatic Representatives of the Imperium that the Emporium Sector of the Merchant Princes’ Quadrant has been seceded to the Imperium. This information has been unofficially confirmed as official by the Merchant Princes’ Representatives here and that sector is now unavailable to traffic of any nature. The Imperium has stated that any Free Union starship found within the new borders will be treated as a hostile and aggressive force. Do not enter this territory under any circumstances or disciplinary action will follow, in the unexpected event of your survival. Message Terminates.”
Infinity Is For Losers Page 7
