*
The Dubious Profit thudded into Qudira space in a burst of actinic light, emerging from her wormhole a few kilometres from the witchpoint beacon. Hesperus rattled through the checklist. The scanner was clear of shipping; he prepped the IFF system and primed a missile, then flicked the compass to bear on the main station’s navigation buoy. Nothing. He swore, and banged the compass with his fist: there. Now he had his heading. A twist of the control yoke and the Dubious Profit rolled her ponderous bulk around; Hesperus eased her nose up and pointed her square on course to the station, still invisible in its slow orbit above the planet’s mottled surface.
He’d chosen the direct route. Sometimes it was safer to take the ship off-lane, to arc out on a long parabola from witchpoint to planet, avoiding the straight track in to the station where pirates could waylay inbound traffic. But in Qudira there was practically no inward trade to intercept; the whole system was more a pirate lair than a cruising ground. The direct approach was probably no more dangerous than any other path, and if nothing else it was shorter and faster. Hesperus swivelled round and kicked Stepan, who was sitting idly in the co-pilot’s chair probing one ear with the tines of a fork. He closed his eyes, muttered a brief prayer to Mandingo, the three-eyed Goddess of Luck, and punched the Profit’s torus drive.
The ship lurched, heaved and flung herself forward, skimming at the brink of lightspeed towards the distant station. Space rippled past her; although the burbling of her engines was far from normal, at least whatever Rus had salvaged from Inines had eliminated their previous sick whine.
The Dubious Profit tore across spacetime, drawing Qudira ever closer. The planet slowly swelled, and Hesperus picked out the gleam of the orbiting station. Stepan grunted, and pointed with his fork at the distant dot. Hesperus eased the Profit on to a more exact bearing, scanning the surrounding blackness for any sign of trouble.
The torus drive cut out; the Profit slowed instantly. Hesperus’s heart leapt. The masslock alarm blinked on the console, and two blips showed on the scanner, almost dead ahead. Well, at least the engines hadn’t failed: no torus system could operate if local spacetime wasn’t smooth and flat. Too much distortion and it would power down, leaving the witchdrive engines to push the ship at a mere fraction of c. Close enough in, stars, planets, even stations would bend space sufficiently to shut off a torus drive. And so, of course, would the engines of other craft.
Two ships hung at extreme scanner range, interrupting the Profit’s run. Hesperus slowed the drive, bringing her to a halt, and swung her nose around to sweep the unidentified craft with the IFF.
Class: Mamba. Offender. Class: Moray Starboat. Offender. There were offenders, and offenders, Hesperus knew. Smuggling was an offence; violating docking protocols was an offence. Attacking merchant ships, blasting open their hulls to steal their cargo and sending their crews to a choking death in the blackness of space was an offence. In a system like Qudira one did not have to be an expert in Co-op law to know what kind of offender to expect.
“Stepan! Stand by. We have company.” Stepan pulled the fork from his ear and readied the ECM. Hesperus bled power back into the engines. The Moray and the Mamba were already swinging round towards them. The Dubious Profit’s alarm yelped as her scanners detected hostile targeting.
Two ships. The Moray was tougher, and could pack a missile or two: but the Mamba was faster, an agile fighter which Hesperus badly wanted out of the way. He hauled on the yoke and the Profit swung around.
Fire flicked out from the Mamba, skittering across the Profit’s forward shield. Hesperus grimaced, giving the controls a rapid twist-and-pull. The Profit rolled away, then with a shrug jerked sharply back. The Mamba wavered in the centre of Hesperus’s sights. Snarling, he thumbed the trigger; the Profit’s military-grade Ingrams laser gave a manic whoop and blazed a livid streak across the Mamba’s hull. The fighter bucked, spinning, but Hesperus drove the Profit round after it, easing down the drive to boost his turn. The Mamba’s engines filled his sights: he jammed the trigger down again and the pirate ship exploded in a white-hot ball of plasma.
The Profit’s shields screeched as a laser played across her stern. Hesperus blipped his injectors, rushing some of his precious fuel reserve through the drive, sending the Profit surging forwards. He glanced at the scanner; the Moray Starboat had swung around behind him. The Profit’s sudden acceleration had broken its target lock, and it was on a tight curve to bring its gun to bear again.
Hesperus heaved on the controls, pulling back hard and sending the Profit into a lurching spiral. He cut the engines completely, rolling the ship through a vertical loop. Confused, the Moray shot past on the port side. Hesperus grinned, and ramped up the drive again. The Moray dodged, weaving from side to side, but Hesperus hung the Profit on his opponent’s tail, splashing fire across its rear.
The alarm warbled: a missile uncoupled from the belly of the Moray, arcing round towards them. “Stepan! Hit it!”
Stepan slapped his paw down, activating the Profit’s countermeasures and sending an electromagnetic storm spraying out around the ship. The cockpit lights dimmed and the controls went briefly mushy in Hesperus’s hands as the Profit’s engines laboured under the sudden power drain.
Nothing happened. The Moray’s missile lanced towards them, riding a hot blue spike of flame.
“Death and derision! Hardhead!” Hesperus yanked the controls again, and squeezed the injectors. The Profit sprang forwards, shooting past the missile. Behind him, Hesperus knew, the electronically-shielded projectile was beginning a wide loop back around towards them.
The Moray. There. Rolling still, trying to turn up and over to face the Dubious Profit. Worry about the missile later; ten seconds or so. Engines at full throttle, Hesperus swung the Profit’s nose dead on to the Moray and let rip. The pirate spun as if in agony, sparks blazing as its shields collapsed. The Moray’s tortured hull loomed up and filled the screen. In a fraction of a second Hesperus took in its scored and pitted surface, saw the cherry glow of its superheated laser, glimpsed the warning decals dotted round the fuel intake; then it vanished, wiped out in a searing explosion which washed the Profit’s cockpit with incandescent light.
The missile. It burned across space behind them, gaining rapidly. Hesperus pumped more fuel from his dwindling reserve into the drive, stretching out the distance between the Profit and her tiny, deadly pursuer.
“Hesperus …” Rus’s voice rumbled from the comms, over the rising howl of the overworked engines.
“Just hold her together, Rus!” Hesperus yelled. “Use your teeth if you have to!”
The ship’s alarm squawked again. Four blips, burning hostile red, swam onto the long-range scanner, above and in front. “Mandingo, you bitch!” shrieked Hesperus. He cut the injectors, slamming the Profit’s nose down, driving her away from this new threat. Pointing her nose straight back towards the onrushing missile. “Stepan!”
Stepan slammed the ECM again. Sometimes you got lucky. The hardhead tore onwards, unaffected. Eyes screwed shut, Hesperus jerked the controls. The Profit kicked and spun. The missile stabbed sideways, trying to match the turn, then erupted in a ball of radiation bare metres behind the ship. The shields buckled and redlined; the engines moaned as they poured out energy to hold them up.
“Are we still alive?” Stepan sounded more curious than frightened.
“For the moment, yes,” snapped Hesperus. “Although I’m sure those four ships closing on our tail will want to add their contributions to the question.”
Could he witch out? The nearest system – the only system he might hope to reach – was Malama. But to plot a course, to spool up the drive, to fly the long and level trajectory required for a safe wormhole jump … no. And after burning his injectors Hesperus doubted he had enough fuel left, anyway. Could he burn the rest? Run in to the station? Or at least outdistance these ships, get out of masslock so he could punch up the torus drive? He glanced at the compass. The station was almost de
ad astern. He’d have to fly a vast loop, and hope to slip past his pursuers. Hope not to meet anyone else, either.
That was when three more blips slithered on to the scanner, dead ahead. Hesperus let loose an oath so vile that Stepan gasped and dropped his fork. Hesperus yanked the cover from the cargo-bay controls: maybe if he ejected the cargo, spewed the precious machinery out into space, the pirates would be satisfied and let the Dubious Profit escape intact. It was better to be alive than dead. Alive and poor. Alive and ruined.
His left hand hovered over the release. On the scanner, the latest arrivals continued onwards – but they still showed yellow. They hadn’t targeted the Profit. And their course looked set to intercept the pursuing hostiles. Left hand still outstretched, Hesperus gently teased the Profit’s nose up and waved the IFF across the three unknown ships.
Asp Mark II. Asp Mark II. Cobra Rapier. Clean, every one. There was, of course, clean: innocent of any crime – and clean: as yet unconvicted. But maybe, just maybe … bounty hunters? The Asps were heavy fighters; the Rapier a light trader, modified for speed and combat. Hope surged through Hesperus again, and he laid a course to put these three new ships squarely between him and the pirates closing in behind.
As one, the two Asps and the Rapier rushed past, injectors flaring. Hesperus flicked his console to the rear view. Through the corona of the Profit’s engines he saw the three ships plunge into a raging firefight. Lasers danced and sparkled against shields; on the scanner the four hostile blips rapidly turned a neutral yellow as their weapons systems switched away to target the newcomers. Hesperus slowed the Profit, watching the contest. Two blasts in quick succession, to the left and right of the pirate group: small ships, he judged; fighter escorts, probably. The ECM chirped as it detected countermeasures in use. One big explosion; well, several big explosions in quick succession, one on top of the other. A large craft, perhaps a Python, that one. Then another, not so big: a Fer-de-Lance, Hesperus fancied, judging by the golden tinge of the plasma ball.
The Dubious Profit’s shields were coming back up. Still using the rear view, the tip of his tongue poking from one corner of his mouth, Hesperus wiggled the Profit’s stern to sweep the three remaining ships. An Asp. A Cobra Rapier. Another Asp. And an expanding cloud of debris. The Rapier began to slide among the mute white dots that marked the wreckage of the pirates, gathering them up into its cargo bay.
Ship-to-ship comms lit up. “Ahoy Python – do you require assistance?” It was one of the Asps.
Carefully, Hesperus closed the cover of the cargo release mechanism, locking it back into place. He picked up the communicator instead. “Thank you, no, no, no thank you, we’re fine here, we’re all better than fine actually …” He was gabbling, and he forced himself to speak more slowly. He realised his ears were lying flat against his skull; with a conscious effort he lifted them forwards, one, two. Travelling together, these three ships would be mutually masslocked. One more ship in their group wouldn’t make much difference.
“Ah, Asp, a heartfelt thank-you to you all, all three of you, on behalf of myself and my crew. And their families.” Hesperus didn’t know if any of his crew had families; he supposed they did, although he had always suspected that Stepan had been found under a rock somewhere. Still, no harm in laying it on. “Are you inbound to Qudira station?”
“We are now. That’s us full up. Have to shift this salvage somewhere. You want to tag along?”
Hesperus wrinkled his nose, and hitched on a smile. “If it would not trouble you, we would be in your debt.” He swore, silently. Bad choice of words!
“No trouble, commander. You can buy us a beer when we’re home and dry.”
Well … a beer. Probably means a beer each, thought Hesperus sourly. Still, though: alive and rich, in return for three beers, was a good deal. “It would be my pleasure.”
He rolled the Dubious Profit around and laid her on course again for the station. The Cobra Rapier took point, and the two Asps sailed out to guard the flanks. The Profit had been battered, but not broken, and the old lady was slowly healing. Together, the little convoy headed in-system for Qudira.