Scout Pilot Of the Free Union Read online

  The mechanic chuckled. “Don’t you worry about that. If you can’t take a joke you shouldn’t have joined.”

  With the private thought that I’d be lucky to take the joke of a vessel anywhere but a scrapyard, I thumbed the entry port and stepped into what was to be my new home. I was horrified. What paint remained was an institutional grey, mixed with rust. The chamber behind the port held what seemed to be decades of detritus. In one corner a large cupboard held a flight suit and a space suit and helmet. The mechanic had followed me on board, and he kicked the bottom of an innocuous looking panel. Some shards of rust fell away and I winced. A concealed panel door opened, revealing a small armoury. Unlike the ship itself it seemed to be respectably modern.

  The mechanic closed the panel door. “All fully loaded and checked on the range. Compliance certificates in the log and flight manual.”

  That at least was in line with protocols. “Where are they kept?” I asked.

  With unexpected agility, the mechanic swung himself up the circular ladder in one corner of the chamber. “This way,” he called.

  With limited options, I followed him up the stairs and emerged into an unexpectedly spacious sleeping quarter; only to learn that it was an unexpectedly cramped everything quarter. “You mean this is it? All of it?”

  The mechanic waved at one small door. “That way is the flight deck. See, it’s got a name plate on the door so as you don’t get lost. There is the sleeping pod, and here is the cooking area. That way is your toilet and next to it the engine compartment, though I’d prefer it if you didn’t go in there except on the scheduled prefight inspections.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Well, the radiation shielding is one hundred and fifty years old too. Let’s keep this living area uncontaminated, shall we?”

  I nodded gloomily. “What happened to the last pilot?”

  “He’s retired.”

  That was better news, that someone could survive this posting for a time.

  “To spend his remaining time with his remaining limbs.” The mechanic opened the door to the tiny flight deck, and without needing to go in fished the log and flight manual from a holder welded to the wall. He raised a folding table that was bolted onto the living quarters wall into place and dropped the flight manual onto it. The table collapsed, dropping the manual to the floor. Some pages fell out and the mechanic stuffed them back into the manual without bothering to see if they were in the right place. “You won’t need more than a quick look at this,” he told me. “Anyone that can make a StarDestroyer do what you did with it two days ago will make this baby dance in their sleep.” He dropped the manual into the sleeping pod.

  “Thanks.” I slumped onto the bed.

  “She’s all yours, Captain.”

  The mechanic saluted, a formality I had not expected. I stood up to return the military salute and cracked my head painfully on the top of the sleeping pod. Laughing raucously the mechanic left, leaving me in sole charge of my new command. I picked up the flight manual and started to read. My first scout assignment would be given to me tomorrow, and I was determined to survive it.

  Chapter two

  First Port of call

  Space is big. Huge, enormous. Let no one tell you anything else. But let me tell you that however vast it may be, space can still feel a bit cramped when you know that the vengeful eyes of a Space Admiral are pointed between your shoulder blades.

  Despite my very real and valid concerns, the Speedbird scout ship had in fact flown adequately. It was a bit underpowered and a bit slow, the coffee maker was antiquated and one of the control levers had been replaced by a screwdriver jammed into the slot which gave me a small electric shock every time I touched it, but the navcomm worked accurately and the onboard computer had all the latest charts.

  These charts were worthwhile as my first assignment had taken me to the far edge of the territory run by The Free Union of Worlds. The Free Union occupied quite a lot of space, with most of the rest being run by the remains of the Imperium on one side and the Merchant Princes on the other. However, there was a small, boisterous (or to put it another, more accurate way -insanely dangerous) group of galaxies where freedom or anarchy ran wild. On the border were a number of Free Ports where the Free Union, Merchant Princes and sometimes The Imperium met in an uneasy truce.

  My mission was to enter one of these places to meet a messenger from one of the Merchant Princes. He had a list of some galaxies on the border that had no wish to remain within the Imperium, and wanted to negotiate defection. The hard control the Imperium enforced along the border had frustrated their attempts to contact The Free Union so far, so now a secret and convoluted arrangement had been made to pass me both the information and the informant. Needless to say, I was keen on touching neither.

  I emerged from hyperspace at a sensible distance from the Free Port. This was not a planet, but a vast space station with almost as many landing docks as Star Base, and nearly as many bars. But it lay in a sensitive border position and those with their fingers on the defenses were likely to fire first and apologise afterwards. If anyone who cared found the wreckage, of course.

  I reduced all forward motion and opened the vidscreens and commchannels to see what was going on. I was horrified. And terrified, of course. The screen was full of spacecraft, more than I had ever seen in one place before, even at the heart of the Free Union’s Star Base.

  The realisation that The Free Union was so less significant than I had thought was not comfortable. Then the number of Imperium ships was a concern. Whilst the largest was only a StarDestroyer class ship, carrying four crew, there were way too many of them for my taste and a number of scout ships like mine swirled around them. Then came a horde of less easily identified craft that had one thing in common: they all seemed to be armed to the teeth with laser cannon prongs sticking out of their hulls from all directions.

  However, my aging Speedbird did seem to fit in with the general age of the spacecraft I could see. I took a deep gulp of coffee and nearly burned the back of my throat. As a result I was still choking when the commscreen came alive on the Universal Channel.

  “Identify: Vessel, POB and purpose of visit.”

  The IFF (Identify Friend or Foe) unit on my ship had been fitted with a temporary interrupter switch for this mission. I checked it and was relieved to see that it was firmly turned off. These units had been introduced by both the Imperium and the Free Union after the Third Battle of Rigel. Both the fleets had emerged from hyperspace at the same time and in the same immediate area and in the indiscriminate fighting that had broken out at once, more ships on both sides had been destroyed by ‘Friendly Fire’ than enemy action.

  Both fleets promptly withdrew after claiming a victory over overwhelming odds. The Admirals got promotions and the remaining spaceships all got the IFF units previously considered too expensive. With no IFF unit sending my details as a Free Union Space Corps ship, I had to respond verbally. Spitting the remains of the hot coffee onto the flight console I did my best. “Dragonfly, one person on board, I need a beer.”

  This seemed to be acceptable as the mass of facial hair on the screen seemed to smile. “Accepted for docking. Port Sixty. Confirm acceptance of automated docking guidance sequence.”

  “Acceptance confirmed.” I brushed coffee from the appropriate part of the flight controls and pressed the button that instructed the flight computer to accept external guidance. The ship shuddered, then under the control of the space station’s computers glided slowly into place. “Sequence complete. Disengage guidance,” instructed the computer in a monotonal dirge. I pressed the button again and shut down the engines and flight computer.

  Part of the preparation for this mission had been to remove all the normal signs that the ship was a military vessel and that I was a Star Fleet captain. No uniform, no military flight suit and I had been issued with the roughest set of second hand clothes I had ever seen. I had also been given a limited supply of the plastic counters
that passed for money out here on the Border as my cards had also all been confiscated. Side arms were allowed, in fact as I emerged for the Speedbird’s entry hatch, they seemed to be this season’s fashion accessory. Everyone in sight was wearing one.

  The bar was where I was supposed to meet my contact, although which bar I wasn’t sure. Passing me was a Rigellian. “Excuse me”, I asked in my best Standard, “where is the nearest bar?”

  “XCXXDTYT%I” he replied and walked off.

  “Not very friendly,” I said to myself and tried the next passing person whose tattoos alone were an incitement to inter species warfare. “The nearest bar?” I asked.

  “lojmIt vegh 'ej tlhe' lugh. Ha' letlh 'ej tu'lu’.”

  He walked off. A nearby Terran human who had been watching the incident pulled out his personal weapon and shot him in the back. “Shouldn’t let the scum talk to you that way,” he snarled.

  I looked around in alarm, but apart from a brief flurry of concern for their own safety, no one else in the space dock was bothered. The next person to walk past the body kicked it off the walkway and went on without a backward glance.

  “Terrans have to stick together out here,” said the recent assassin, in blatant defiance of the truth. “You’re not the right colour, but more or less the same species. Leastwise I could hold my nose and use your organs if I needed them.”

  I was taken aback at this. I had thought one benefit of interstellar travel was that we humans had abandoned racial prejudice in favour of hating other species instead.

  “Let’s have a drink.” My new friend (it seemed safest to think of him that way) sheathed his weapon and took my arm. He led me through the nearest door, turned to the right and up a set of stairs complete with the usual suspicious smell associated with impatience. At the top of the stairs was a sight and sound to assault the senses.

  Only those who have attended a Sci Fi and Fantasy convention could appreciate the crush at the bar and the loud noise of many people talking loudly at once about their favourite subject. In this case, it was causing violent death to others, of course. Although, come to think of the last convention I had attended in Star Base…

  “I’m Rosto,” he said.

  “Russell, Frank Eric,” I replied.

  “Russell will do.” Rosto hammered on the bar until he received the attention of a harassed looking bartender, who clearly knew him too well. The bartender didn’t ask what he wanted, just produced two beers and took some of the strange plastic credits that passed for money here.

  “Right, Russell, get that inside you.” Rosto raised his glass to me, and I responded, then tasted the beer. It was surprisingly good. Rosto noticed my surprise. “The bar would not be here if the beer wasn’t decent. Not with this crowd and the weapons on their starships.”

  I didn’t know what to say to this, so drank more beer. Rosto started to pull me to one side. Then he stopped. “Quick,” he hissed without looking at me. “Get lost in the crowd. Go back to your ship, I’ll meet you there!”

  I glanced in the direction Rosto was looking and saw four Terrans in Imperium uniforms pushing through the throng in the bar, heading in our direction. Without hesitating, I slipped into a group of Rigellians who were arguing with some Centurians. They pushed me carelessly to one side, and from behind them I was able to watch Rosto being shoved to the bar by one of the Imperium officers. Rosto never looked at me, but he didn’t seem overly concerned so I finished the excellent beer and shoved the glass onto a nearby table and left the bar, trying to be as casual as possible.

  Back in the Speedbird, I felt happier. I had arrived at my destination successfully, made my first trip into territory on the dangerous Border and survived, and might even have met my contact. So far, so good. I made some coffee and settled down in the living area. Actually, I dozed off, and was awoken by the persistent alarm from the entry hatch. Slightly disorientated, I staggered from my sleeping pod to the entry phone. Rather an outmoded device, but still useful.

  “Hello?” I yawned.

  “Keeping you up am I? Let me in!”

  “Who are you?”

  “It’s Rosto, you cretin. Open up quick! It’s a bit exposed out here.”

  “Yeah?” I was about to press the remote open button when a small amount of common sense started yelling so loudly inside my head that I finally recovered a small sense of self preservation. Instead I went to the Flight deck and activated both the speaker from the entry phone and the security camera.

  “I’m a bit exposed here!” growled Rosto.

  “So I see,” I told him, turning off the security camera with a wince.

  “Well I needed an excuse for standing here so long. Look, you are in a Free Union Speedbird. You’ve got to be the one I’m trying to meet!”

  Aha, I thought. This could be my contact. “What’s the code word?” I asked.

  “Let me in you cretin, before those Imperium troopers gets here!”

  As I knew that all Free Union markings had been erased – I had taken the precaution with Mike and the mechanics of checking this detail – I was impressed that the scout ship had been recognised and lifted my hand to the hatch controls.

  “And you are serial 666!” Rosto sounded desperate. As he had now identified himself as my contact, I wasn’t in the least surprised and opened the hatch. The internal vidscreen let me watch as Rosto threw himself inside and slammed his hand against the internal controls, closing the door.

  “You moron!” Rosto’s voice floated up the stairwell and into the living quarters and flight deck. I went to the stairs to meet him, and his first act was to punch me in the stomach, which I thought showed rather a lot of ingratitude. “You could have got me killed!”

  “You didn’t give the password!” I rubbed the affected area rather vigorously.

  “Password, smashword. Look, there isn’t always time for things like that.”

  “Not what I was told at Star Base.”

  Rosto indicated quite forcefully what he thought of Star Base and my superiors. As I quite agreed with what he was saying I rather warmed to him, and made him a coffee.

  “What’s it like, living under the Merchant Princes,

  then?” I asked.

  Rosto scowled. “Pretty much like living anywhere else. The rich live happily and order the rest of us about. And they don’t like the Merchant Princes tag either – they prefer to be known as EFTA, the Enterprise Free Trade Area.”

  Free Trade of course only meant free trade for the Merchant Princes. Everyone else was taxed pretty heavily for importing or exporting, I knew that.

  “Right, have you got this list, and what do you want for it?” I asked.

  “There’s no finesse about you, is there?” replied Rosto. He tried the coffee and pulled a face. “What’s in this, then?”

  “Coffee.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” Rosto pulled a hip flask out of his pocket, and added a clear liquid to the mug. “I’ve got the list of contacts.”

  “Where is it?” I asked.

  Rosto shook his head. “You don’t think it’s on me, do you? I’d never have lived through that enquiry by the Imperium’s agents if I was carrying it.”

  “They’d not have killed you in the bar, surely?” I asked.

  “Openly?”

  “Sure, Oh, they’d have had to pay for cleaning the carpet, but otherwise the BarLords here don’t care about things like that.”

  I reassessed my personal safety, and didn’t care for the result. “So where is it?”

  “Cached,” replied Rosto briefly.

  “Cashed? Like a cheque?”

  “No, you idiot. Cached. I’ve got it hidden. I want a guarantee you’ll get me out of here safely, with a decent pension and a place to live inside the Free Union.”

  “Is that all?” I asked. My superior had been prepared to cope with a more extravagant demand.

  “Yes. If I ask for that, I’ll get it. If I ask for mo
re, you’ll have been authorised to grant it but when I get to the Free Union and they have the list of contacts, I’ll be quietly vanished to save money.”

  I wasn’t too sure about that, but then again he might well be right.

  “Can you get a secure line to your commander?” asked Rosto.

  I agreed, and showed him the flight deck. The commscreen opened suspiciously quickly, and I realised that Star Base must have been waiting eagerly for a call. Rosto shoved me unceremoniously out of the door of my own flight deck, and started bargaining. After a while he opened the door of the flight deck and pulled me back inside. With two of us there, the small room felt rather cramped. It wasn’t really, and I realised that I had actually started to get used to flying a single pilot scoutship. Rosto must have felt the same way, for he pushed me out of the flight deck and closed the door. Before I had time to think about this sudden bit of self-knowledge though, the door had been reopened and my Commander was issuing me with orders. I said “Sir” and ‘Yes” and “No” at what seemed appropriate points in his monologue, and he eventually seemed satisfied and closed the channel.