Shadowplay: Book One of the Starcrown Chronicles
Page 35
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Jon Gerrard’s
Second book in the Starcrown Chronicles:
Scourge
Jason Raynor’s adventures continue
as he seeks answers to the secret behind the pirate menace.
Read on for a preview of Chapter One
The interstellar commercial transport Dawn Star had been plying the space lanes for more than six years since she and her sister ship, the Evening Star, had first been put into service. While she could no longer be considered new she was still a relatively young ship, especially by today’s standards. Because of the heavy tolls the shipping industry was taking as a result of the increasing pirate activity, transport companies were keeping ships in service for longer and longer periods of time. Quite simply, the profits were not there to purchase new ships.
But Captain Ernesto Chavez was not complaining. His ship was one of the youngest in the company’s fleet. Six years was more than enough time to work through any break-in problems, not that there had been many. Built by the renown multinational ship builder Empyrean Technologies, the Dawn Star had proven herself to be sound. Over the past few years she had logged more light-years than many ships twice her age without any major problems. She was comfortably broken in like a favorite pair of shoes. In fact that’s how the captain liked to think of her: comfortable. And like a favorite pair of shoes she had adapted to suit her user’s needs. Right now for Captain Chavez that meant his chair on the bridge. One thing he insisted on was that no one but him sat in that chair. Over the years the padding had formed to the contours of his body until it fit, well, like an old shoe.
Settling back into his seat the captain sipped his morning mug of coffee and scratched at his ample stomach which hung over his belt. On the bridge with him were his first officer, Sasha Goodkin, and the helmsman, Anton Kozlov. Kozlov was young, barely nineteen. This was his first time aboard the Dawn. Like most of the crew he was newly hired by the company at a salary far less than what the former, more experienced helmsman had been paid. Cutbacks had forced the ship’s owner, the Star Transportation Combine, to reduce personnel to skeleton crews throughout their fleet.
“Easy money, eh, Sasha?” the captain said to his first officer. Unlike the young helmsman, the first officer had been with the company for many years, having worked her way up from assistant navigator, a position which no longer existed.
“If you say so, Ernie,” she answered. The first officer couldn’t disagree with the captain more.
“Oh, come on, Sasha, we’re getting pay and a half plus an on time bonus for a short hop. Surely you’re not going to tell me you object to getting paid extra to do what we would normally be doing anyway?”
“Of course not,” Sasha said as she studied the sensor display. “I’d just like to get back in one piece to be able to spend it.”
Chavez laughed. “You worry too much. There hasn’t been any pirate activity in this sector for more than nine months.”
That’s because the company usually sends out convoys of ships, Sasha thought, but kept her comments to herself. In her mind the captain was foolish not to worry about being targeted. They were alone on this trip, easy pickings for any pirate who came along. That was why she was keeping an eye on the sensors. They were away from the usual shipping lanes so there shouldn’t be anyone else around. If they did pick up a ship with their sensors she planned to make sure they gave it a wide berth, even if it meant sacrificing their quick delivery bonus. Their engines were in good shape and she was confident that they could stay ahead of any ship that did try to run them down, at least long enough to reach port. The trick was to pick them up on long range scan while they were still far enough away to make a run for it.
In a gesture of acknowledgment of the potential danger, the company was allowing them to carry sidearms for the first time. Captain Chavez wore his like a badge of honor, although Sasha doubted if he even knew how to fire it. This was assuming of course that he could draw the pistol with his holster obstructed as it was by his prodigious belly. Kozlov on the other hand seemed nervous about having his strapped on. Sasha hoped the kid didn’t try to draw it. He’d likely shoot himself in the foot. As for herself, Sasha had her’s securely locked in her cabin safe. She figured that if armed pirates ever did board the ship she wanted to give them as little reason as possible to want to shoot her.
Satisfied that there was nothing in range of their sensors, she began a quick review of the other boards to check on the ship’s status. Picking up a stylus she did a quick walk across the bridge, checking off items on her flatpad. All systems were running smoothly. Once she finished she gave the pad to the captain for his review and signature and went back to the sensor console to run another scan.
Normally she wouldn’t bother running scans every few minutes. The system could be set to scan automatically and alert them if anything turned up in scan range. Then again, normally they were part of a convoy cruising the regular shipping lanes. Two or three ships traveling together were too much for a pirate ship to swallow. For over a year now the company had been sending its ships out in convoys. So far that tactic had kept away pirate attacks but it had other impacts on the business as well. Shipping costs had gone up dramatically since transports were deadheading for one or more legs of each trip. But whether they were carrying cargo or not those ships still burned fuel and still had crews aboard that needed to eat and breathe. To help offset these costs, in addition to raising transportation fees and laying off a sizable percentage of their work force, the company had also cut salaries across the board by twenty-five percent.
Sasha had a mortgage and a daughter entering college. The cut in salary had really hurt, but she figured she was better off than everybody who had lost their jobs. That was why she agreed to do this run when Chavez told her what the company was offering. She wasn’t as impressed as he seemed to be about being paid one and a half times the normal rate. She had done the math and calculated that since they had already reduced her salary by twenty-five percent, the ‘incentive pay’ as they were calling it amounted to only slightly more than what her old salary used to be. But meager as it was it was extra money she could not afford to pass up. She just kept praying that no pirates happened across them while they were out here.
When her second scan also turned up nothing she started to relax. They were more than half way through the trip and would be off loading their cargo in another thirty-nine hours, when they would pick up their bonuses. It did seem a little odd to her that there was such a fuss being made over mining equipment, which is what their cargo consisted of. A company called Intrepid Enterprises had apparently discovered extensive mineral deposits on the moon of a gas giant in a remote star system. They were willing to pay above the usual rate to have the equipment shipped to them as quickly as possible. Sasha could only suppose they must have come across some pretty valuable ores. Maybe Intrepid Enterprises would pick them up as a regular client and contract with them to ship the ore back to one of the refining platforms. Regular trips would mean the company would be sending convoys, not single ships, out this way. That would be fine with Sasha. It was creepy being out here all alone.
She had just set the system to automatic scan and was about to turn away when she thought she saw something on the screen. She stopped and stared hard, waiting to see if it would return. A few moments later it was there again. It was almost like the wake effect of a ship moving at high speed, but the sensors weren’t reading any ships anywhere near them.
“Ernie, come take a look at this,” she called to the captain without taking her eyes off the screen.
Captain Chavez heaved himself out of his chair to waddle over to the sensor console.
“Have you got something?” he asked, and took a long pull on his coffee.
“It comes and goes. It’s almost like–there!” Sasha said when the strange return appeared briefly again.
Chavez had never seen anything like it. He tapped the display with his fingers. “Glitch?”
“I don’t think so,” Sasha said. “Whatever it is its close. Let me try a short range scan. It’ll give better resolution.” She switched the sensors to short range. At first the screen remained blank, then there was a faint return. “It seems to be coming from astern.”
Neither Ernie nor Sasha had any military experience. They had no idea that what they were tracking was an incoming torpedo, an electronically stealthed missile that was locked onto their ship.
“That’s the damnedest thing I ever saw,” Chavez said when the signal popped up briefly again and faded almost at once. He tried to adjust the sensor resolution but couldn’t get a better image. He quit fiddling with the controls after a moment, shrugged and turned back to his seat to focus on his unfinished coffee. “Make a note to have maintenance look at it. It’s probably just a ghost image.”
“I don’t think so Ernie,” Sasha said as she watched the image pop up onto the screen again. “It doesn’t look like any kind of false sensor reflection I’ve ever seen. I think there’s something out there.”
“Come on, Sasha, if there was something out there the collision alert would have–”
At that moment the shrill warbling of the collision alert claxon sounded on the bridge. Captain Chavez started and dropped his coffee, staring open mouthed at his first officer.
Sasha reacted to the warning claxon immediately, but it was already too late.
“Evasive starboard!” she yelled to the helmsman.
Kozlov had nearly jumped out of his boots at the sound of the alarm claxon. He stood frozen with panic for several seconds until the first officer’s words finally worked their way into his consciousness. Looking down he grabbed the pilot wheel and tried to steer the ship to starboard but the yoke wouldn’t budge.
“I ... I can’t! It won’t move!” he cried out.
Sasha sprang toward him. “The autopilot! Disengage the auto–”
Before she could reach him they felt the ship shudder violently around them. Warning lights began blinking from several of the consoles as the main viewscreen flashed, showing their sudden return to normal space. A quick glance across the engine monitor board showed that their drive system had failed.
Captain Chavez jabbed at the intercom. “Engine room, come in!”
He was answered only by static.