An orange tractor beam shone out of the cockpit’s rear wall and took hold of Jake, flinging him into the air and onto the pilot’s seat. A second tractor beam pulled the seat’s safety straps across his lap and shoulders and locked them in place.
“It’s about time you showed up,” said Maggie from her position in the copilot’s seat. Her hands flew across the control console as the Paladin dodged right and bounced against the side of the cargo bay’s hull, stepping on several screeching bats in the process.
“You seem to be doing all right on your own,” Jake said as he wrapped his right hand around the control stick, grabbed hold of the weapon’s control with his left, and placed his feet on the maneuvering pedals.
Maggie shook her head. “Guess again. I’m too logical. The tactical computers on the bat’s UHAAVs are starting to anticipate my actions. That’s how I lost my Gatling gun. What we need are some of your blind luck and illogical moves to get us out of here in one piece. The crazier the better in my opinion.” She frowned before nodding in the direction of his feet. “I’m guessing you’re aware that you aren’t wearing any boots.”
Jake didn’t bother replying. Through the forward windscreen, he’d spotted a Crosioian six-legged UHAAV similar to one of the Intergalactic Empire’s heavy Leviathans squatting on its knees toward the rear of the cargo bay. A turret with a massive 400mm phase cannon was on top of the heavy cat.
Throwing caution to the wind, he did the most illogical thing he could think of. Practically daring it to fire, he charged the heavily armored UHAAV. The bat manning the phase cannon turret was apparently either too brave or too stupid to care that firing the large caliber weapon inside the confined area of the cargo bay would have disastrous effects on any storm troopers still in the bay. A green glow appeared in the opening at the end of the cannon as the large phase round chambered and began charging. Like his Deloris blaster, Jake knew the phase cannon fired a solid slug of brerellium-steel encasing a creallium core. The larger the core, the longer it took to charge the creallium with phase energy.
Maggie looked over from the copilot’s seat. “I said illogical, not suicidal!”
Knowing he had less than five seconds before the weapon fired, Jake didn’t bother trying to explain. He raised the Paladin’s 75mm phase autocannon and pulled the trigger on the gun control. He was thrown against his harness as a three-round burst of 75mm rounds flew toward the opening in the cannon’s barrel. The first two phase rounds passed to either side of the cannon, ricocheting off the heavy cat’s armor. The third round flew straight into the glowing green opening.
Boom!
Green energy exploded out the base of the heavy cat’s turret. Internal explosions of phase energy tore the turret off the UHAAV’s back, blasting it up into the ceiling. Reinforced by an energy field, the cargo bay’s roof resisted the force of the turret and sent it back the way it had come. The burning turret ricocheted into the articulated armor connecting the big cat’s cockpit to its back. The force of the blow was too much for its armor. The cockpit broke off and bounced on the deck before the rounds in its forward gun arrays exploded. Streaks of plasma energy bounced from one end of the cargo bay to the other. Several balls of green energy hit the Paladin’s forward windscreen. The glass-steel cracked but remained in place.
The troopship jerked to the left, causing Jake to lose control of the Paladin. The side of the cockpit bounced off the cargo bay’s hull and the Paladin went down on one knee, but he got the agile cat back on both legs with a twist of the control stick.
Boom!
The main body of the Crosioians’ heavy cat exploded as green plasma and phase energy erupted out of the opening where the turret had been. The blast knocked the Paladin down on both knees.
“My right servo’s out,” said Maggie. “I’m trying to adjust.”
Two ammo storage lockers attached to the inside hull of the cargo bay exploded. The Paladin and what remained of the Crosioian storm troopers and their cats were thrown from one side of the cargo bay to the other.
“Make that both left and right servos are out,” said Maggie. Her hologram turned and flashed Jake a smile. “I’ll say this, Tiger. You sure know how to show a girl a good time when you take her out for a night on the town.”
A loud roar from outside the troopship was accompanied by another lurch of the cargo bay.
“That last explosion must’ve taken out part of their electronics,” said Maggie. “The troopship’s force field and the jammer are down. I’m in contact with Commander Onstott. He and the others are on their way. The troopship’s trying to take off. I highly recommend we get the hell out of here.”
Jake pulled back on the control stick in an effort to get the Paladin on its feet. “Nothing’s happening! The leg controls don’t work.”
“Hey,” said Maggie. “What’d you expect? I told you the servos were down. Did you think I was lying?”
Ignoring his AI, Jake switched to the right side gun control and pulled the cat along the deck toward the forward ramp. It was slow going as the troopship tilted up in preparation for transitioning to flight mode.
Reaching the end of the ramp, Jake didn’t bother checking to see how high they were. Reasoning told him the longer he took, the higher they’d be. Pulling the Paladin over the edge, he tumbled down, catching a glimpse of the swamp two hundred meters below. Firing the cat’s left side maneuvering thrusters, Jake rolled the Paladin onto its back and raised the right gun appendage for one final act of defiance.
The troopship was there in all its glory with four glowing lines of plasma energy shooting out of its maneuvering thrusters as its nose tilted upward in preparation for firing the main flight engine.
Pulling the trigger on the autocannon, Jake sent a continuous burst of 75mm phase rounds at the nearest thruster. A blast of green energy blew pieces of the thruster’s engine outward. At the same time, the recoil from the autocannon rolled the Paladin onto its side. He caught a brief glimpse of the troopship tilting to its port and careening toward the swamp.
A giant hand shoved Jake into the padding of the pilot’s seat as all air was knocked out of his lungs. The lights in the cockpit went out. The windscreen turned dark. Explosions, muffled but still loud, echoed in the distance. A small emergency light in the back of the Paladin’s cockpit came on.
Catching his breath, Jake looked at the windscreen. All he saw was black through the glass-steel. A trickle of dark liquid coming out of a crack in the glass fell onto his face and mouth. The nauseating taste told him what the dark material he saw through the windscreen was.
“Mud,” Jake managed to get out. “We’re on our back. We’re buried alive.” Glancing to his left, he looked for Maggie.
The copilot’s seat was empty.
“Maggie!”
Panic started to well to the top, but he forced it back where it belonged.
“I’m here, Jake,” came Maggie’s voice over the cockpit’s intercom. “We’re on emergency power. The hologram projectors and tractor beams are out. All servos are also inop. We can’t move. I’m sorry. I guess I let you down.”
Despite the situation, Jake almost laughed. “You?! I’m the one who jumped out of a perfectly good starship. Not that I’m complaining, but why ain’t I dead. A two-hundred-meter fall should’ve killed me and destroyed the Paladin.”
“It would’ve if we’d hit solid ground. Fortunately, I was able to get our force field up long enough to take some of the shock of the fall. The swamp mud was thick enough to soften the rest of the blow.”
Jake unstrapped and climbed out of his seat. Walking on the cockpit’s back wall, which was now its floor, he made his way over to the electronics panel. He ripped off the access port and looked inside. A wave of dark smoke accompanied by the smell of burning rubber washed over him. He shoved the panel back over the opening.
“Status report,” Jake said. “What’s going on outside?”
“All sensors are out. We’re on our back, so you can’t get
out of the emergency hatch. I suppose you could rig some kind of explosive on the windscreen and blow it out. The glass-steel is already cracked. You might be able to survive the blast and make it to the surface, depending on how deep the mud is.”
Jake had no wish to find out. Suffocating in mud was not the way he wanted to go.
Before he could make a decision on what to do next, something banged against both sides of the Paladin’s hull. The cat jerked, knocking Jake backward as the cat tilted upward. Suddenly, the cockpit’s floor was its real floor again. Jake fell face first onto the metal deck. Scrambling to his bare feet, he jumped into the pilot’s seat and buckled in. Reaching for the right side gun control, he tried to bring the 75mm autocannon to bear on whatever was outside but didn’t hear the distinctive sound of the cat’s gun appendage moving.
All servos are out, Jake thought.
He pulled the autocannon’s trigger just in case something happened to be standing in front of the barrel. No shots rang out.
Something scrapped against the forward windscreen and a section of mud fell away. Light streamed in through the opening.
“You okay, kid?” said a mechanical voice that sounded amazingly like Commander Onstott.
Something brushed against the forward windscreen again. More mud fell clear.
Jake made out massive steel legs and a clawed arm grasping both sides of the Paladin’s cockpit. High overhead, he looked directly into the Leviathan’s cockpit. The grinning face of Commander Onstott stared back.
Behind the welcome sight of Onstott, Jake saw smoke pouring out of the Crosioian troopship half buried in the mud five hundred meters away. A score of cats sporting insignias of the 57th Mechs scrambled around and on top of the downed starship. An occasional beam of green or red energy shot out as his fellow mercenaries cleared out the last pockets of resistance.
Laughter came out of the Paladin’s intercom. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. You are one lucky cat pilot,” said Maggie.
Chapter 3 – Vulture
_______________________
The pencil-necked vulture on the other side of the desk stared at Jake through a pair of granny glasses. Like all carrion-eaters, the middle-aged man seemed to be anticipating the upcoming feast on his victim’s carcass.
“As I’ve already told you, Mister Striker, you signed a legally binding agreement. My hands are tied. I’m truly sorry,” said the assistant-to-the-assistant for the vice president of Conglomerate Accounting for Mercenary Endeavors. The tightlipped smile the man gave Jake was anything but apologetic.
Jake did his best to control his rising temper. “I entered the troopship on my own. I brought it down. I’ve been told the salvage for the troopship and its cargo of cats and weapons is over twenty billion credits. How fair is it that I’m only getting ten thousand?”
The thin-necked man leaned back in his chair, pushed away from his spotless desk, and removed his glasses. He waved a free hand at the cubicle after cubicle of two-meter-high partitions separating the offices of hundreds of other low-level accountants, bookkeepers, and legal personnel working for the business entity known throughout the galaxy as the Conglomerate.
“Mister Striker, my compatriots and I handle a half-million transactions every day. Trying to make everything fair, as you say, would result in chaos. For the sake of our stockholders, we have to rely on legality as the standard of fairness for our transactions.” The assistant-to-the-assistant gave another of his smug smiles.
Jake fought an impulse to leap across the desk and knock the smile off the man’s face.
Leaning forward in his chair, he put his glasses back on before touching an icon on his desk. A ray of light shot out. Contained within the hologram was a contract, the word Conglomerate and the name Jake Striker predominantly displayed on the form’s image.
Nodding at the contract, the man said, “I believe that’s your signature, Mister Striker. You and twenty-six others in your unit chose the option of a ten-thousand-credit guaranteed payout for one month’s work as part of the 57th Medium Mechanized Company security mission on Thrakis. The remainder of your unit chose a lower guaranteed payout with an option for shares in any salvage. To use your own words, would it be fair for the Conglomerate to take credits from those who took the lower-guarantee and possible-shares option and give the credits to you because you made a bad business decision?”
Jake gripped his hands around the armrests of his chair. “I know what I signed. The point I’m trying to make is that, uh, out of a sense of gratitude, perhaps the Conglomerate would—”
The vulture-necked man laughed. “That’s not the way things work, Mister Striker. It would be a slippery slope for the Conglomerate if we made an exception for you.” The man glanced around before touching an icon on his desk.
The contract disappeared and was replaced by the hologram of a loan form.
“I’m not unsympathetic, Mister Striker. I’ve taken the liberty of looking at your case. My sources tell me that the repairs on your, err…what do you pilots call them? Cats?”
Jake nodded.
“Yes, well, my sources indicate your repairs will be well over a hundred thousand credits. Until they are completed, the Conglomerate cannot offer you any new missions nor can we allow you to take up space in one of our hangars. Fortunately for you, we have a lenient loan program for these kinds of situations. We will gladly advance you a hundred thousand for—”
Jake jumped out of his seat.
The assistant-to-the-assistant scooted back in his chair and pressed a button on the seat’s armrest.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Jake said, forcing his voice to remain below a shout. “You lure people in with loans and then suck them dry just like you did my dad. Well, I’m not going to fall for it. I’ll get the credits somehow. You can take your loan and shove it up your—”
“Is everything all right, Mister Antripels?” came a deep voice from behind Jake.
Two husky men nearly as wide as they were tall stepped to either side of Jake. Both wore blue Conglomerate security uniforms and side weapons. Looking at the size of the men’s arms, Jake wondered why they bothered carrying pistols at all.
“Yes, yes, I’m sure everything’s fine,” said the assistant-to-the-assistant. “Mister Striker was just leaving.” He looked at Jake over the top of his granny glasses and gave another of his tightlipped smiles. “Weren’t you?”
Taking another look at the two corporate goons, Jake spun on his heels and made for the elevator. The guards followed him all the way downstairs and through the lobby to the exit. As Jake stepped out of the tall building, into the city street, and the door slid shut behind him, he heard the sound of laughter.
Hailing a hover-taxi, Jake slid inside and closed the door behind him.
“Where to, sir?” asked the android driver.
“The spaceport.”
The hover-taxi rose into the air as the android gave a mechanical smile. “It’s a lovely day, sir. Are you in town for business or pleasure?”
Jake glanced out the window at the bland, gray-stoned walls of the two-hundred-story Conglomerate division headquarters on Trillian.
“I’m not sure yet, but it’s definitely not pleasure.”
Chapter 4 – Spaceport
_______________________________________
After paying off the taxi when it let him off on the civilian side of the spaceport, Jake switched to one of the military courtesy hover-cars. Its no-nonsense Intergalactic Empire driver dropped him off at the north entrance to the city-block-size, five-story metal hangar that served as the maintenance facility for the 57th Medium Mechanized Company. The large building was only one of a hundred such buildings spread around the Conglomerate’s part of the sprawling spaceport. Except for the building number and insignia of the military or mercenary unit assigned to the hangar, the metal buildings all looked the same.
After exiting the hover-car, Jake took a look around to give himself time to think
before doing what he knew had to be done. I’ll say this for the Conglomerate, they don’t waste credits on aesthetics.
In addition to the hangars, the Conglomerate’s portion of the spaceport had half-a-thousand launching pads. Most of the pads were occupied by transports and smaller shuttles. Crews of technicians in blue or orange utility suits scurried about loading or unloading equipment onto the vast variety of starships.
Heck. There’s even more ships orbiting Trillian than there are down here. Next to the Intergalactic Empire’s spaceport on Risors, Trillian’s probably the busiest port in the free galaxy.
During his initial assignment with the 57th four years earlier, Jake had been surprised to learn the civilian Conglomerate maintained its own naval fleet and army, in addition to the merc units they hired. Why the Empire let them keep their own military was beyond him. He’d figured the odds were that a lot of politicians got their palms greased with an ore-cart of credits.
Knowing he was just putting off the inevitable, Jake took a deep breath and entered the hangar. Most of the sixty work bays housed UHAAVs of every shape and size. It was relatively quiet inside though a few bays had orange-suited technicians and blue-suited mechanics working on cats damaged during the fight with the Crosioians on Thrakis. The damage had been light. That is, it had been light for all but one of the UHAAVs.
Jake headed straight for bay forty-two, spotting the Paladin without a problem. It was the only UHAAV being supported by tractor beams coming out of maintenance cranes built into the hangar’s ceiling. Although all the swamp muck had been washed off the Paladin before they’d loaded her onto the Conglomerate’s troopship for transport back to Trillian, the crossover UHAAV was a pitiful looking sight. It was missing its left gun appendage. Both brerellium-steel legs were disassembled and spread out across the work bay’s floor. The armored chest-plate that normally covered the engine area was nowhere to be seen.
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