Interstellar Mercenary Read online

  “So it would seem,” I muttered in an ungracious tone.

  “I shall endeavour to be a support to you. I assure you that I shall be right behind you, Colonel.”

  The best place to knife someone is from the back, as all the best covert operators had told me. Accordingly I was less than impressed by the notion that Hardin’s associate planned to be right behind me. Luckily, before I could express my feelings on this point the door was flung open by Captain Hobbs who was clearly upset.

  “Pirates! They’ve seized an incoming ship!”

  “Who’s on watch at the Outer Beacon?” I demanded, while Calderon spared her an inscrutable look.

  “Rogett. He started to intervene, but the pirates had three ships to his Spartan so he had to withdraw.”

  “Right. Your ship, Nichols and Greene, and whichever of the Spartan scouts are on standby. I’ll fly the Speedbird! Let’s go!”

  Captain Hobbs ran, and I hurtled out of the office after her towards the landing pads. I was surprised at how fast she could run when really motivated and fell behind her. I was so focused on keeping up with her that I didn’t think quite how conveniently the pirate activity had arisen until the Speedbird was lifting away from the docks and I realised that I had left Councilman Hardin’s functionary alone in my office.

  “Rogett, Seren Leader. Co-ordinates for the incursion!” I requested.

  “Seren leader from Rogett. The action is close to the Outer Beacon. I’ve withdrawn out of range.”

  “Then get in there and engage!”

  “There are three of them.” To my ear, even over the comms system, Rogett’s voice had a trace of fear in it.

  “We’re approaching in support. Your task is to harry the pirates and stop them from plundering the freighter and making away. Keep them occupied!”

  The carrier wave hissed as Rogett made no reply. I pushed the power lever as far forward as I could and searched the forward vidscreens.

  “Seren Leader, Seren Nemo.”

  That was Nichols in a Centurion Class StarDestroyer. “Go ahead, Nemo.”

  “What are your instructions for the engagement?”

  I peered ahead through the vidscreen. Light flared briefly as a torpedo exploded on a defence screen, otherwise I could make out no details. “There are three hostiles, size unknown. Seren Two (that was Hobbs in her StarDestroyer), you and Nemo are to engage any ship actively looting the freighter. Spartan scouts, follow me and we will engage any other ships in the vicinity. Attack speed. Engage the enemy.”

  The small group of Serenopolis ships accelerated towards the freighter. Flares and explosions rippled down the length of the commercial ship, as the crew fought to keep the pirates at bay. As we drew closer, it became possible to see the pirate StarDestroyers more clearly. I could not recognise their Class, but the two now drawing alongside the freighter were covered in alarming and repulsive images. The third pirate vessel, almost large enough to be a StarCruiser, turned and came straight for us, spitting torpedoes in all directions. Defence screens flared as the scout ships scattered, leaving me as the main target.

  I let fly a couple of my own torpedoes and mines, then rolled the Speedbird hard to the right, pulling the scoutship round as hard as I could. Then, just as the turn was becoming established I nosed down in the vertical axis. The set of missiles from the pirate that had anticipated my turn missed safely. As I twisted course again, the comms channel filled with the chatter of the Spartan pilots as they sought to attack the pirate ship.

  “Surrender and you’ll live!” snarled a voice over the comms.

  I looked astonished as the engagement had only just begun, then realised that it was the pirate leader talking to the freighter crew. I spared a glance at the vidscreen. One of the pirate StarDestroyers had detached from the freighter, and was engaging both Hobbs and Nichols at the same time. The other ship was presumably trying to force a boarding party onto the freighter. I was about to shout some orders when the Speedbird shook violently and lurched sideways, throwing me to the floor. I’d been hit! Spinning madly, it was hard to stand upright but I grabbed the seat of the pilot’s chair and pulled myself back to the flight console. The pirate ship filled the forward vidscreen and the collision alert warning klaxon began screaming unbearably.

  The comms channel was full of shouting, swearing and excited voices. I ignored it and tried desperately to regain some control over the reeling, pitching, scout ship. Then the vidscreen filled with sparks and glare as the Speedbird’s defence screen slammed into the pirate ship’s force field defences at an oblique angle before bouncing away from the collision. The impact threw me to the floor again, adding more bruises to my existing collection. As I fell, my left hand struck a random switch, breaking my little finger. The pain was excruciating. But bad as it was, survival still came first.

  I turned the auto stabiliser back on for a moment. Normally this is a bad move in combat as flying a straight and level course is a recipe for some ill-intentioned person to take a pot shot at you with a high chance of scoring a direct hit; but when your craft is entirely out of control, rotating in both x and y axis at the same time, the auto stabiliser can give you the help you need to recover control. With my face screwed against the pain from my broken finger I flicked it back off again as soon as the Speedbird’s flight path became a little less nauseating. I ripped a piece of cloth from the frayed sleeve of my flight suit and started binding the broken finger to the next one on my hand.

  “The colonel’s scored a hit!” yelled someone.

  Looking at the vidscreen I was delighted to see flames blossoming from the bridge section of the pirate Space Cruiser. The Spartan scout ships were circling the huge ship now, testing the defence screens to see if there were any weakened areas. No one else seemed ready to try and batter their way through with their own ship, though. Clearly they had more sense than I did.

  Curving back towards the engagement, I could see that Captain Hobbs had the entire attention of one of the pirate StarDestroyers, but seemed to be holding her own. Nichols had gone alongside the ship that was fastened to the freighter and was effectively preventing it escaping. When I looked back at the pirate StarCruiser, it had spun about and was accelerating away from the engagement, with some of the scout ships following it. In a moment, the StarDestroyer in combat with Captain Hobbs had also disengaged and was following the larger ship as it fled. Captain Hobbs eased her ship alongside the freighter on the opposite side to the pirate.

  “All ships hold fire!” I called on the open comms channel. “Pirates, do you wish to surrender?”

  “What terms?” came a strained, nervous reply.

  “We’ll stop shooting at you,” I told the pirate.

  “What happens after that?”

  Actually, I didn’t have the faintest idea. “Does it matter?” I asked. “All ships, close in on the pirate. Pirate, open your airlock and prepare to receive a boarding party.”

  “We surrender. Opening airlock now.”

  “Colonel, what do we do with the crew when we get on board?” asked Lieutenant Zabir when I detailed him to lead the party on board the pirate ship and fly it back to Serenopolis.

  “Umm. Tie them up. Securely. Keep them under guard in the living area, and when we get back to base we can deal with them there.”

  I honestly couldn’t think of a better idea. I tried, believe me. Something classy maybe, to add to my prestige in the eyes of the Councilmen who thought that I didn’t have any. But I was still racking my brains when everything suddenly went pear shaped. Just for a change. The freighter was underway towards the space dock, the captain full of voluble praise and gratitude – probably because he had recovered such bits of his cargo as the pirates had started to remove. The pirate ship, surrounded by Spartan space scouts, was following the freighter, with myself and the two StarDestroyers acting as a rear guard in case the pirates suddenly reappeared. A sound plan, working well, I thought. Then Lieutenant Zabir came up on the comms system, his voice sou
nding a little strained.

  “Colonel, we have a problem.”

  “What’s up, Doc?”

  “The pirates say that before we went on board, they started the timed self destruct routine for the StarDestroyer, and that time is running out.”

  “What? Why didn’t they say something before?”

  “Well, the freighter captain had five minutes with them after we’d tied them up.”

  “What? Why? How?”

  There was a silence. Then Zabir said: “My fault, Colonel. Anyway, about the self destruct. We’ve got five minutes.”

  “I should leave you on board!” I snarled. “Right, I’m coming to get you. Get everybody to the airlock now.”

  “Even the pirates?”

  “Especially the pirates.”

  “Why don’t we leave them to get blown up with their ship?” asked Zabir.

  “First because I say so. Second, because I say so. Third, it’s the right thing to do. Fourth, we’d all look pretty stupid if we abandoned them to be blown up and they knew how to abort the self destruct and just flew off, wouldn’t we?”

  There was no reply to that, and I quickly sent the Speedbird down to the pirate ship. I left the comms channel open, and the monotonous chant of ‘T Minus four’ or whatever echoed through the flight deck. Zabir, Lieutenant Mombai, and the three pirates were waiting for me as the Speedbird raced towards the ticking time bomb of a ship. As soon as the airlocks touched, they all jumped across and slammed the Speedbird’s outer door shut. “Clear, Colonel!” called Lieutenant Zabir over the intercom, and with less than a minute to go I pushed the Speedbird up to full power. The rest of the Defence Force was already at a safe distance from the pirate ship that drifted in space, silent except for the robotic countdown from the onboard flight computer.

  There was some yelling from the entry port on the level below me. It was hard to know what was going on, and as I rose to investigate the pirate ship exploded behind us. The shock waves threw the Speedbird wildly out of control. I fell onto the flight console, knocking out a tooth. My yells of pain joined the cacophony caused by the shouting from the entry hatch, the screams of various infuriated emergency alarms and the comms channel demands of the other pilots wanting to know what exactly was going on.

  The lost tooth gleamed on the console, but I thought it best to ignore my personal distress and bring the ship back under some sort of stable control. The auto stabiliser routine managed that effectively, and so I left the flight deck to examine the cause of the kerfuffle on the entry port level. “What’s going on down there?” I shouted from the top of the spiral staircase.

  “Nothing much. Not now, anyway.”

  “Lieutenant Zabir? Are you in control of the situation?”

  “Pretty much. Come on down.”

  I was about to slip down the stairs when a more intelligent thought crossed my mind. That hadn’t sounded exactly like Zabir’s voice, although it was very close. Maybe stress was the cause of the difference? After all, Zabir had just boarded a pirate ship, captured some heavily armed criminals with bad attitudes towards authority and then narrowly avoided being blown up by a StarDestroyer’s Auto Self Destruct system. He was entitled to be a little stressed.

  “You come up,” I suggested.

  There was some muttering from the lower level, and my suspicions hardened at once. The problem was that all the hand weapons on the Speedbird were actually kept by the entry hatch, where they would be ready for use. Just, in this instance, not my use.

  “You’ve got it,” called a cheerful voice that I definitely didn’t recognise.

  Feet sounded on the stairs, and after a moment a fully bearded face rose over the top step. I didn’t hesitate, just kicked at the face as hard as I could. With a cry comprising, in equal parts: anguish, pain, and complete exasperation, the pirate fell down the stairs. From the accompanying sounds I assumed that he had taken at least one of his colleagues with him, and so I slid down the stairs as fast as I could, swinging from the central pole. The pile of pirates at the bottom of the steps provided me with a nice, soft landing.

  The third pirate had a hand weapon on Zabir and Mombai: he turned to look at me and Zabir promptly kicked him very hard indeed in a sensitive spot. Everyone, including his fallen comrades, winced in sympathy at the sound of the kick going home. Lieutenant Mombai grabbed the hand blaster from the victim as it waved wildly about and pointed it at the two pirates under my feet.

  “Nice one, Colonel!” said Lieutenant Zabir, and I smiled modestly.

  *

  “Death!”

  “Death!”

  “Death!”

  The three captured pirates stared at the judges in the court for a long moment, before reacting to their sentence. Then as one, they made an ancient (but still entirely rude) hand gesture at the panel of judges, who replied with the self-satisfied smirks of those with a much longer life expectancy.

  “Take them down!” decreed the President of Serenopolis, who was acting as the presiding judge. He was in no doubt that the verdict would prove popular with the population of the city, if not with the pirates. But there were fewer pirates in the court, and he was protected by several heavily armed marines. I, and most of the Defence Force, were in the court as witnesses. As the pirates were dragged away, still mouthing understandable abuse, I looked at the faces of the flight crews under my nominal command. Some seemed indifferent, but several were unimpressed.

  “Not happy with that,” muttered Lieutenant Zabir.

  “Not here,” I told him. “Somewhere less public.”

  At that, most of the crews got to their feet and started to walk out in a body. After a moment, all the others followed them in a show of solidarity. I was starting to follow them, when the President called me back.

  “Colonel,” he said to me in a quiet voice when I approached the judge’s bench. “We don’t execute prisoners here on Serenopolis.”

  As he had just given the pirates a death sentence, it seemed to me that that was going to cause some practical difficulties, and I made the mistake of saying so. And of asking why. The President looked all around, to make sure that our conversation was unlikely to be overheard. Since the court officials had made a speedy departure in case the President tried to get them involved in this unpleasant duty, and the onlookers had got out of the court fast in case the President decided to spread the punishment around, we were now almost alone.

  “The pirates cannot be executed on Serenopolis.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, firstly it’s a bad precedent. Start with executing pirates and you end up executing politicians.”

  At first that seemed a bit odd, but of course after a bit of thought, I could see the line of logic there. There’s not all that much difference in practice between the two professions.

  “Secondly, there are some religious issues. Here on Serenopolis we have two competing religions, both recognised by the City. One of those has requested in advance of the verdict that any terminal activity be carried out beyond the City. They believe that violent death within the City’s boundaries will have terrible consequences. Which it will for the pirates involved of course, but they mean for the wider population. I myself do not subscribe to their views, but one must respect at least the voting power of their followers.”

  “The other religion?”

  “As I understand matters, the Followers of Zog would be quite happy to carry out the sentence themselves.”

  I nodded. I had heard The Word of Zog myself. Many times, in fact. “Talk the poor beggars to death, I expect!”

  The President permitted himself a small smile. “Possibly. But that too would be a poor precedent. Killing sanctioned by the State should be kept apart from killing sanctioned by religion, in case the latter decides it should take precedence.”

  “So what’s the plan, then?” I asked.

  “We will have them formally escorted, in chains, to the space dock. There they will be placed in the airlock of one
of the Defence Force vessels, taken out into space and ejected.”

  “No!” I was appalled at the idea. “That’s murder!”

  “If you did that without proper authority, yes. If I, as President of Serenopolis, give you a formal order then it is a military act sanctioned by Law and the State, and not murder.”

  “Sir, other than in a combat situation I’ve never killed anyone in my life!”

  “On the contrary, Colonel Russell. Colonel Starker of the Imperium has presented us with a list of people you have killed. He admits that it is incomplete, but it still makes impressive reading.”

  Starker! Again. Colonel Starker was probably the single most feared man in the entire Galaxy. Nominally in charge of the Imperium’s Black Ops unit, he was actually the Imperium’s chief spy with a reputation for torturing his captives mercilessly. Not to get them to answer questions, of course. They had all been terrorised into spilling any information that they had before he started work on them. The rumours ran that Colonel Starker just liked to hear the screams. Lots of them. I had crossed his path before, and Starker did not so much bear a grudge as caress it, lovingly polish it and keep it close and never, ever forget it. I thought that here, in a dark corner of the Galaxy I might be safe from him. Clearly I was wrong.

  “He has sent us something he calls a Pan Galactic Arrest Warrant Enforcement Notice, demanding that we hand you over to his officers.”

  My mouth was so dry I could not speak. The President raised an eyebrow at this rare occurrence, then continued. “Of course, we have no intention of that. You are under contract to us, and we do not recognise this attempt by the Imperium to suggest that Serenopolis is part of their sphere of influence.”

  I relaxed a little. I tried not to show it, but the President was an acute observer of people, and so he noticed, and smiled. “You will carry out the execution yourself, Colonel. Tomorrow, I think. Best to get these things over with, don’t you agree?”

  Typical politician. There, unspoken, was a quid pro quo. If I did this dirty deed, then the President would just ignore the arrest warrant. Probably. For a time, until it suited him, anyway. I quietly decided that I would have to make myself very useful for a very short period of time while I collected as much cash as I could, and then I was for off. I shook the President’s hand, and with an effort managed not to be too obvious when I counted my fingers afterwards.