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Interstellar Mercenary
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Interstellar
Mercenary
Will Macmillan Jones
First edition 2019 by Red Kite Publishing Limited
Text Copyright 2019 by Will Macmillan Jones
Will Macmillan Jones asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, including but not limited to electronic, mechanical, photocopying or recording, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Find out more about the author on www.willmacmillanjones.com
ISBN
978-1093343984
CONTENTS
Other book:
1
Chapter One
Pg 5
2
Chapter Two
Pg 10
3
Chapter Three
Pg 28
4
Chapter Four
Pg 50
5
Chapter Five
Pg 68
6
Chapter Six
Pg 81
7
Chapter Seven
Pg 96
8
Chapter Eight
Pg 125
9
Chapter Nine
Pg 157
The Space Scout Collection:
Scout Pilot of The Free Union
Infinity is for Losers
Rogue Pilot
Interstellar Mercenary
Galactic Fugitive
Other books by Will Macmillan Jones
Paranormal Mysteries
The Mister Jones Collection
The Showing 2014
Portrait of a Girl 2015
The House Next Door 2016
The Curse of Clyffe House 2016
Demon’s Reach 2017
Fantastically Funny Fantasy:
The Banned Underground Collection
Tolkien meets Spinal Tap!
Too many to list, so
Check them out at www.thebannedunderground.com
Chapter One
The combat computer overlaid the vidscreen above the flight console with small coloured markers: red for the spaceships under my command, and green for the opposition. Not yet the enemy – or at least, not until the first shot was fired. The City Council of Serenopolis, our employers, liked to call us a fleet but in truth The Free Union Star Fleet would have considered these fourteen ships just a small squadron. I checked our formation again. I was at the front point, with the other ships in a crescent behind me. The opposition ships had slipped into a star formation. There were only twelve of them, yet they seemed very confident.
“Serenopolis Leader!” came a heavily accented voice over the comms system. I needed a moment to remember that I was Serenopolis Leader, a strange career development for me. I acknowledged the incoming call, but there was no image. The comms computer screen remained obstinately grey.
“Serenopolis Leader, this is Florentine Leader. You are requested to return to your base, and await my instructions. The Florentine City Governors do not wish to enter into conflict with you, when this matter can be resolved by negotiation.”
I drank some coffee, wincing slightly at the aftertaste from the cheap brand that was all that Serenopolis stores would supply. “Florentine Leader,” I replied. “My instructions are clear. You may send a diplomatic mission of one ship, and one ship only.”
In the vidscreen, the green dots shivered as the opposing ships moved slightly, a hole opening at the centre of their formation. I considered the odds. I had more ships under my command, but most were the same size as my tiny Speedbird scout ship. Only three full sized StarDestroyers were on our side, and they were elderly Resolven Class ships recommissioned from surplus sold off by the Imperium Star Fleet following one of their regular upgrades. StarDestroyers were much, much larger than my single crew scout ship and generally heavily armed. Florentine Leader, whichever ship he was in, had four StarDestroyers and although they too were outdated Marauder Class ships, they were rather less outdated than ours. Their scout ships seemed to be about the same standard as ours, and there we outnumbered them.
I paused the comms line with Florentine Leader and keyed the open line to my squadron. “They are going to attack. Hold initial position and activate defence screens.”
“How do you know they are going to attack?” asked one of the Serenopolis pilots, who was inexperienced in combat.
“Experience! Here we go. Ships on the outer part of the formation: start to envelope inwards.”
One of the Florentine ships launched a pair of space torpedoes towards us, and I reopened the line to the other flotilla’s leader, now reclassified in my mind as ‘the enemy’. I knew that the Council back in the Senate House inside the City would be monitoring the calls. “Florentine Leader, cease firing now or we will act to defend Serenopolis City!”
The Florentine formation split into three lines and opened up with their onboard space cannons. Defence screens flared and crackled, but experience drew my attention to the space at the centre of the expanding Florentine formation. I armed the forward cannon and on impulse, released a couple of torpedoes right into the gap. My intuition was right! The vidscreen image of the space between the arms of the Florentine formation wavered as a full sized battlecruiser disarmed its cloaking device. I felt a sudden frisson of fear. A battlecruiser with the lost technology to cloak its existence: no wonder the Space City of Florence had been ravaging this arm of the galaxy and hoovering up the resources of the Space Cities around here, decimating their small defences and starting to create a small empire.
Given half a chance, the battlecruiser would overwhelm my Speedbird’s defence screens like a giant swatting a fly. I hit the flight controls and spun the ship wildly, hoping to confuse the gunners. I rocked about on the pilot’s seat, but luckily the five point seat belt kept me in place. The comms filled with the shouts of the Serenopolis pilots. “Engage! Return fire!” I shouted to them and changed course again. The rear vidscreen suddenly filled with light, and with a shock I realised that my space torpedoes had hit the Florentine battlecruiser just as it had disengaged the cloaking system and before the defence screens had engaged. I shouted with elation – this was probably the first time that a Speedbird scout had taken out a ship of that size!
There was no time to enjoy the moment, though. There were still enough Florentine ships to win this engagement, even without their major weapon. A StarDestroyer swung round behind me, firing viciously and accurately. I activated my defence pod and took evasive action. Scout ships whirled round and round, chasing a momentary chance to catch an enemy vessel unawares. In the vidscreen, I saw two red blips fade as our ships were lost: but one Florentine StarDestroyer was drifting, dark and silent and another two of their scout ships were on fire.
Trailing smoke and spilling debris out into the vacuum of space, the Florentine battlecruiser began to withdraw. “Seren Two form up on Seren Leader!” I ordered, then using the directional thrusters dropped the nose of my Speedbird as hard as I could to avoid colliding with a Florentine StarDestroyer that I had almost accidentally rammed. I sent a couple of space mines after it and was delighted by the flare of light in the rear vidscreen as at least one of the mines impacted with the engine pod of the StarDestroyer.
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“Form up on me now, Seren Two!” I didn’t spare the time to see if the StarDestroyer was close on my quarter, but twisted and dived at the retreating battlecruiser. The Speedbird jerked and rocked as the defence screens struggled to absorb the impact from the laser cannons as the battlecruiser gunners reacted to our attack. The Serenopolis StarDestroyer behind me surged forward, and let loose everything in its armoury. The StarDestroyer rolled away: I fired my remaining torpedoes and spun off in the opposite direction, as a Florentine Scout fired its cannons at my rear. The sudden move confused the pilot, and as I rolled the Speedbird out of the line of fire the battlecruiser’s gunners – unsighted – scored several direct hits on the scout which promptly disintegrated. The StarDestroyer’s attack largely spent itself on the battlecruiser’s defence screens, but the damaged screens had been overwhelmed and my space mines stuck home. Lights flashed along the fuselage of the enormous ship, debris fountained out of the ship as the hull fractured. The battlecruiser slewed to the right and the bright navigation and internal lights began to fade along its whole length.
“Suck on that!” yelled the pilot of Seren Two, in triumph.
I checked the vidscreen. We had lost another two ships, ships that might be impossible to replace out here on the edge of the Badlands of the galaxy.
“Surrender now and you will not be harmed, Florentine crews,” I called on an open frequency.
The Florentine ships withdrew and took up a close formation around their damaged battlecruiser. The comms channel burst into life again but rather than sounding defeated, the Florentine Leader merely sounded exasperated at having lost the brief engagement.
“Seren Leader, again I invite you to surrender.”
“What?”
Chapter two
My name is Frank Eric Russell (although I was not using that name right now), once a not overly successful captain in The Free Union’s Star Fleet, then a less than successful covert operative for the Diplomatic Corps, and now a disgraced ex everything who makes a living on the fringes of the Galaxy in an elderly Speedbird Space Scout ship. The pilot of a scout ship needs to have his (or her) wits about him (or her) at all times. With just one person on board, the pilot has to fly the ship, navigate, task manage – and in between cook, clean, do some basic personal and on board maintenance and even sleep. You might be the most misogynistic specimen of mankind but you still have to be able to multitask: and relax, of course. This is why I was sitting in the pilot’s seat of my ancient Speedbird, drinking coffee and reading a book, when one of the warning lights on the control panel started flashing.
I was unmoved, not least because my foot was in the way and I couldn’t see the thing except as a sort of reflected glow on the silent comm screen. I have no idea how long it had been flashing before the ship’s computer got entirely fed up of being ignored – which is a common fault of computers, I’ve found. They have no patience, unless they intend to be annoying when they can repeat the same pointless and irritating response to a command ad infinitum. Anyway, the computer decided that I had ignored the warning light for long enough and resorted to attracting my attention with a warning noise.
I ignored the computer again. Mostly because when the audio alarm sounded I had jumped in the chair, spilt hot coffee over the book, the chair, and some sensitive bits of me. The chair had responded by collapsing and dumping me unceremoniously on the floor in a pool of now cooling coffee – from where I couldn’t see the flight console anyway. Cursing and dripping, I pulled myself to my feet and glared at the vidscreens. Nothing. I scanned the immediate area: still nothing to note, just an asteroid belt around a dark planet near the outer rim of this star system.
The asteroids were not marked on my star charts, but as I was cruising in the region known as the Badlands of the galaxy, I was not over surprised. All my charts were old and had probably not been updated since originally drawn up, which was why I hadn’t bothered buying new ones. After all, neither The Free Union nor the Imperium were interested in laying a claim to control this sector and they were the only two powers with the resources to survey and redraw the charts. According to the chart, my destination was still half a day away, located deeper into the star system. I picked up my coffee cup again and sipped carefully, savouring each mouthful. I was nearly out of the precious liquid. Perhaps I could buy some more as part of the trade deal. The cargo space, such as it was, on the Speedbird was crammed with exotic luxuries of almost every kind - but typically, not with coffee or I would have liberated some. The cargo was en route to some wealthy politicians (and there rarely seem, in my experience, to be any other sort. Either they start off wealthy, or quickly find some riches obscurely hidden away in their Administration’s accounts) and their families. I had decided that serving the niche luxury market for powerful people might be less risky than the other trading operations I had tried recently.
The alarm sounded again. Another glance at the flight console suggested that it was the proximity alert alarm. More alert myself now, I scanned the vidscreens. Perhaps the inhabitants of this star system had some local defences or customs ships patrolling the rim of the system. I had all the paperwork for my visit, supplied by a bloke who called himself The President of Serenopolis Senate, so a customs inspection should not be too bothersome.
Wait: there was something. I focused on the asteroid belt off to port at some distance. A StarDestroyer and three scout ships swung into view from behind some of the rocks. I could not see any markings at this distance, but increased my speed anyway. The other ships selected an interception course but the comms system remained silent. I frowned uneasily. Most customs vessels would declare themselves at this point, not maintain radio silence. I added a little more power, and opening the combat computer screens, prepared the defence pods for action. The StarDestroyer speeded up too and began to close the distance between us while the scout ships spread out and matched my course. This was now a classic interception formation, and I was increasingly nervous. I finished the coffee whilst I still could – no point in wasting it. The other ships gradually closed in on me. Finally the comms system crackled into life.
“Speedbird, reduce power. Hold vector and await boarding party.”
“Excuse me? Who exactly are you?” I replied.
“What is your destination in this system?”
“What is it to you?” I activated the ship’s defence screens.
“This is a Customs and Security check on all incoming vessels. Follow my instructions.”
The proximity alert sounded again, and the vidscreens showed me more spaceships rising from the inner levels of the system towards me.
“Speedbird, acknowledge my instructions and await my barge.”
The StarDestroyer aligned itself with my course and a small shuttle, the same size as my entire craft, emerged from below its bulk. In the vidscreen, the other ships seemed to be accelerating and had assumed an attack formation. There was something very wrong here. I had to choose sides, I suspected, and there would only be one opportunity not to be in deep trouble. The shuttle was approaching, but fortunately on the opposite side of my ship to the entry port. It closed position on me and matched speed and vector, maintaining a short distance away from the Speedbird’s hull. I scanned the image in the vidscreen, but still could see no markings at all on the side of the shuttle.
Time to choose. I went with my gut instinct and did nothing. If whoever was onboard that shuttle wanted to cross to my Speedbird, they would have to loop around and come up on the starboard side where the entry hatch was positioned. For a heartbeat, nothing happened. The spaceships began to come together with that illusion of increased speed always created by a decrease in the distance between them. Then the shuttle’s engines flared, and the small craft peeled away and headed back to the parent StarDestroyer. No sooner was it enveloped within the larger craft’s docking area than the whole group that had claimed to be from local customs turned and made a quick getaway towards the outer rim of the system.
“Speedbird, this is Serenopolis StarDestroyer Nemo. Were you damaged by the pirates?”
“Pirates?” I was relieved. Once again the wisdom and benefit of putting off any decision was revealed. If I had accepted the shuttle’s boarding party I would have been in big trouble. “They said that they were local customs.”
The StarDestroyer captain chuckled. “A quaint local custom, that. No, they were pirates. We’ve been having trouble with them for a while and they’re getting more aggressive. I’m surprised that you got through their cordon so easily. Most of our incoming shipping has been taking bad losses.”
“I used to be a Reconnaissance Unit scout pilot for The Free Union. We’re good at avoiding things.”
The StarDestroyer captain chuckled again. “I’ve heard that about them. Mostly it’s avoiding any real work, I recall. Come on, we’ll escort you in. Do you have an approach chart?”
“I’ll just follow you.”
“See you on the ground, then. I’ll pass you the co-ordinates and approach vectors.”
In the vidscreen, the StarDestroyer slowly rotated, and then set off back into the depths of the system. I followed, with the other ships taking up a rearguard station behind me. The comms computer chattered to itself as it received flight and approach data, and passed it along to the navcomm. I know that I have a problem with Authority in general (and to be fair, Authority often has a problem with me), but I have an even bigger dislike for pirates.
Although I had heard the stories about the place, I had never previously seen Serenopolis. When the place came into view on the forward vidscreens, I stared in amazement, wonder, and disbelief. Serenopolis was one of the fabled ‘Flying Cities’. Many centuries ago, when their human colony world’s resources had been decimated and polluted beyond the point of no return, a number of the great cities had installed huge, all-encompassing force-fields around their lands: torn themselves free of their home world and launched themselves into space. Once there, they had selected their own preference of wandering asteroids, landed the whole city on the surface and then fixed themselves permanently in place. The asteroids (and of course the cities) had then continued their interstellar wanderings. The cities made a living by trading: and of course by attacking and plundering each other, humanity being what it is.