Merkiaari Wars Series: Books 1-3

by Mark E. Cooper

  “Bored?” Eric said wandering over.

  Gina shrugged. “Nothing to do here. Security? Don’t make me laugh. We’re the only living things on the entire damn planet. I could have left my rifle home for all the target practice I’m going to get.”

  Eric chuckled.

  “Seriously, Eric, what are we doing here?”

  “Nothing much. That’s why I came to find you. I think our time is better spent identifying and surveying other sites. This one is promising I grant you, but we should have at least one backup. Hobbs did identify a few other places for us to visit.”

  Gina nodded, it made sense. “Sounds good. You take the first ten on the list. I’ll take the next ten. Okay?”

  Eric nodded and they bumped knuckles to seal the deal.

  Eric was the first to mount up and leave in his APC. Gina went to find Liz to inform her of the plan, and to tell her to shout over the comm if she needed viper help. Liz agreed absently and waved her away. She was distracted with work. Gina trotted off already reviewing her list of sites and creating her flight plan so that she didn’t waste time backtracking. The less time spent in the air the better.

  * * *

  Aboard Archer’s Gift, Kushiel System

  Leon Adler, captain of the Kalmar registered ship Archer’s Gift glared at the information his sensors reported to him. Was it a warship or just a freighter as his sensors seemed to suggest? It couldn’t be a simple freighter. There was nothing in the system to trade and no station to trade with.

  Nothing here to interest a trader, not a legit trader at least.

  Who were the bastards? What were they doing here? A trap laid for him, or a competitor? He hammered a fist on the control panel, and his exec eyed him warily. He ignored the man. Haliwell was a new hire after Andrea left him at their last port. He missed her steadiness, but not her bitching. She hadn’t agreed with his salvage run to Kushiel and had left the ship the moment they’d docked after their initial run, not even waiting for her pay. Not that he could have paid her anyway. Maybe she had known that, maybe not, but a good dozen of the crew had left with her. That meant half his crew was new and most of them were scum. He didn’t dare walk his own ship’s deck unarmed anymore.

  Andrea had gutted the ship when she left and took the best half of his crew with her. It had nearly broken him to watch them go. They had been together a long time—years of legitimate trading, good years all, but a few bad trades had led him inexorably toward others in an effort to dig himself out of the hole. It hadn’t worked out, and he’d slipped deeper and deeper into trouble. Now he was the captain of an armed merchant vessel trading around the edges of civilisation, desperate to reverse his mistakes.

  It wasn’t too late he swore. He just needed one good break and he could reverse all the ill fortune. He wasn’t beyond redemption. He hadn’t killed anyone, his deals might be a little dirty, but he wasn’t an outright pirate. He wasn’t a raider either, despite appearances. Kushiel was a dead world after all. It wasn’t the same thing, no matter what Andrea had said to him on the docks the day she finally left. It wasn’t! Taking what he needed from Kushiel wasn’t like raiding a colony, and he was desperate. This was his last chance.

  He glared at that innocent seeming icon on sensors. He should pull out, come back next month and see what this ship, these poachers, had left him. That was the safe thing to do, but he couldn’t afford to play it safe! His creditors were howling despite the down payments on the debt he owed each of them. His last trip here had barely paid the interest on his loans. If he put into any legit port with his holds empty, he could kiss his ship goodbye. They would take it and sell it out from under him, and he would still owe them afterwards. He was in so deep, he needed two ships of Archer’s type to pay the debt. She was old and worth little more than scrap value to anyone but him. Goddamnit! This run had been his way out.

  Haliwell refined the sensor data. “Definitely a trader. I think you’re right, Captain, someone must have talked. They’re poachers.”

  Leon nodded and tried to keep the rage off his face. He couldn’t let them take his last chance away from him. Inside he wailed that he wasn’t a killer, and that was true, but that final line was about to be crossed. He prepared to sacrifice the last shreds of his honour and felt sick. He had no choice! They had left him none. He couldn’t just leave them to take what was his. He doubted he would still be the captain when they next docked if he tried. He’d made the crew some promises, and Haliwell was already looking at him oddly.

  He rubbed his forehead feeling a stress headache pending. “All right. This is what we’re going to do...”

  Aboard Hobbs in orbit of Kushiel

  Captain Gibson sat in his command chair drinking coffee and reading reports. It was the middle of the watch, and things were quiet aboard. No emergencies or rush to load or unload cargo. All that had been completed two days ago. His crew were on maintenance watch now. Nothing urgent required attention.

  As for the salvage operation, reports indicated things were progressing well. Base camp was complete and attention had shifted to alpha site. That was the name given to the first, and hopefully, the only salvage site on the planet. The entire mission didn’t sit well with him. Grave robbing, that’s what it amounted to. The sooner they left Kushiel the better.

  “Sir?” Heather Watson, Hobbs’ scan tech said. “That ship is still coming.”

  Gibson rose to join her and had a look at her data. “Well, they did ask permission to approach. An engineering casualty like they described isn’t anything to fool with.”

  “Yes, sir, but they’ve missed turnover.”

  Gibson frowned. The term “turnover” harked back centuries to a time when ships used old style reaction drives without anti-grav compensators. It was applied to the point in a journey when ships literally had to about face and apply thrust in the direction of motion to slow down. These days, deceleration was a matter of the correct application of anti-grav, but the term was still used for the point at which a ship starts decelerating to make a rendezvous.

  “Their course?”

  “Unchanged,” Watson said worriedly.

  That couldn’t be right. If they’d missed turnover for whatever reason, they would need to change course if they still wanted to rendezvous with Hobbs in orbit. If they didn’t change course, they would miss the rendezvous entirely and fly right by. They would have to slingshot around the planet and try again. Leon wasted a few minutes checking the data and reluctantly decided she was right.

  “Hail them,” he snapped heading back to his station.

  “Aye, sir,” Noel at communications said.

  Leon waited for a response wondering if perhaps Archer’s Gift had suffered another malfunction and lost comm. That ship was a piece of junk and...

  “Contact! Multiple contacts incoming. Missiles! They’ve fired on us!” Heather cried in shock.

  Leon gaped at her, unable to move or understand. Fired? Missiles? Fired missiles at him? His brain gibbered at him, but his voice didn’t betray him. He was snapping orders, and only afterwards did he realise they were the right ones.

  “...ound collision!” he cried and the gong gong gong of the collision alarm sounded throughout the ship sending the crew to emergency stations, and causing blast doors and other internal partitions to lock down. “Point defence free!”

  “Point defence free, aye. Autoloaders operational. Targeting under computer control!” Max said from the helm. Hobbs wasn’t a warship. Its defensive armament was controlled from his station.

  “Bring up the drive. Go to evasive as soon as we have power! Communications: get me Captain Penleigh. I think we might need to bug out. Tell him yourself if I’m busy. Tell him why.”

  “Aye, sir,” Noel said and hunched over his panel.

  “Everyone,” Leon said trying for calm. “Let’s work the problem calmly. That ship is some kind of raider, but we out mass it a hundred to one. We’ll be fine.” In the background he heard Noel reporting to
Penleigh. He was about to take over, when Hobbs lurched and rolled crazily amid warning sirens and alarms. “Report!”

  Heather’s fingers raced over her controls, revising and refining her scan. “Some kind of stealthed missile or... no! They fired early and let the missiles come in on inertia ahead of them. They had to have fired hours ago, sir. I’m still tracking the others—the second wave.”

  Leon shook his head in disbelief. Second wave? That sounded—

  The second wave of missiles came in fast and deployed. They were, every one of them, designed to hash sensors and spoof point defence. They did their job of sucking Hobbs’ point defence missiles toward them and away from the third wave. The third wave performed its task admirably. They struck the ship more or less unopposed, and a new sun was born in orbit of Kushiel. It lasted mere seconds. When it died, the remains of Hobbs fell out of orbit burning and still breaking into smaller chunks. Explosions amid the debris shattered the ship into smaller and smaller pieces. Of its crew, only briefly glowing molecules remained.

  * * *

  17 ~ Castaways

  Alpha site, Landing, Kushiel

  Gina stared up at the meteor shower grimly. Eric had just told her about the action in orbit, but the second brief sunrise over the city had been a big clue that something was wrong. The burning chunks of Hobbs were still entering atmosphere when Eric ran up to her and explained. He had run off again now, leaving her to watch the show. None of the debris would strike anywhere close. That was a mercy, but all it would do was prolong their deaths. They had two shuttles and could reach orbit, but without Hobbs they couldn’t leave the system. She tried to imagine the General sending another ship to check on them when they failed to report via drone, and realised he would do that, but it would be months too late. They would be out of food and canned air long before that. They had enough food for a month, maybe two if they rationed it. They had been relying upon supplies from Hobbs for most things.

  Gina used viper comm for privacy and contacted Eric. “We need to start rationing.”

  “Forget rationing. Let’s survive the day before worrying about that.”

  “But—”

  “Think about it, Gina. A raider ship comes to a dead colony world and blows away a prize like Hobbs without hesitation. What do you think they’re after?”

  Put that way it was obvious. Raider ships, unlike run of the mill pirates, jacked colonies out in the Border Zone when they could get away with it. For one to come here meant it wanted something on the planet more than it wanted to jack a ship. She remembered the bank and blown vault they had seen in Haverington.

  “You’re right. We need to get the civs in a hole. Somewhere out of sight. We can’t take them back to camp.”

  “Agreed,” Eric said. “With any luck these bastards will ignore us while they do whatever they came to do. I hope to god whatever they’re after isn’t here in Landing.”

  There was that, but Gina was thinking ahead to other problems. Problems like air, and food, and clean water. Problems such as how the hell would they escape Kushiel? They needed a way to get aboard the raider ship and take it for themselves. But first things first. She needed to get Liz and her people undercover.

  “Where are you right now, Liz?” Gina said heading for the shaft. “You up top?”

  “No, I’m at the bottom of the stairwell. We’re just about to break into the clear.”

  “Good. I’m coming down. I need you to keep everyone there with you. No exceptions.”

  “Whatever for?” Liz said, sounding puzzled.

  “I’ll explain when I get there. While you wait, start thinking about a way to make yourselves more comfortable down there.”

  “What’s wrong? Has something happened?”

  “You might say,” Gina agreed as she reached the crane and ordered the driver to lower her down in the bucket. “I’m coming down now. Meet me.”

  “All right, but we’re so close to breaking through.”

  “Don’t stop the work. You might need to stay down there a while and you’ll need the space.”

  “But... what the hell has happened?”

  “I’m nearly down. I’ll fill you in.”

  Liz was waiting for her when the bucket stopped at the level where the work was ongoing. They had dug out a hundred and thirty feet or more of rubble and Gina could see what Liz meant about breaking through. There wasn’t much stopping them advancing to the next landing. Liz offered a hand to help steady her, but she didn’t need the help. She bent her knees and then straightened explosively, bouncing out of the bucket as if her legs had turned into springs. Liz applauded.

  “Nice landing,” Liz said. “What’s the urgency?”

  Gina explained. Liz stopped smiling and her face turned grim. She looked back toward her people still working unaware that anything was wrong, and then back to Gina.

  “We can’t stay down here—”

  “You have to!”

  “Hear me out,” Liz said in a placating voice. “We can’t stay down here without supplies from the camp. Eighteen hours from now, our suits will run out of power and air.”

  Shit. She had just been thinking about supplies, but she hadn’t thought about power for the suits. Food, water, air, and power; those four things above all were needed. She had to make a run to the camp.

  “I’ll tell Eric,” Gina said. “We’ll get you what you need. You have eighteen hours to burrow down to somewhere you can call home for a few days. Can you tap into the emergency lighting down here for power?”

  Liz nodded. “Bring me a water purifier and a way to recharge the suits, and we can last a few weeks, but how do we get home?”

  “I’m working on it,” Gina said grimly. She left Liz to her work and contacted Eric to tell him what she’d said. “... Liz says she can hold out weeks with those supplies.”

  “Already on it,” Eric said. I’m loading up now with most of that stuff. Didn’t think about the purifier. I’ll add it.”

  “You need help?”

  “Yes, but don’t come here. We can’t afford to lose us both if the raiders decide to blow away the camp. We’ll do this in shifts. I’ll let you know when to make your run.”

  “Okay, Eric, be careful.”

  “Careful is my middle name,” Eric said.

  She snorted. “Sure it is.”

  Gina climbed atop the rubble that had already filled the bucket and contacted the crane driver to hoist her up. She wanted to get back to her shuttle so that she would be ready to fly the moment Eric called. The bucket lifted clear of the shaft, and she jumped out before the crane driver could stop his lift. She raised a hand to him in thanks and pushed herself into a run.

  Her APC was waiting.

  When she reached the shuttle, she parked the APC in the shadow of a wrecked building. She wasn’t planning for failure, but should she be shot down, Eric could still use her APC and all it contained. She ran her pe-flight checks and waited for Eric’s call with her eyes nailed to her sensors looking for trouble. She was still looking when Eric called her.

  “I’m lifting now,” Eric said. “Make your run.”

  “On my way. Any sign of the bad guys?”

  “Not yet. We might have to go looking for them. I’ll have to think about that. We can’t leave Liz and her people unprotected.”

  Gina scowled. She knew he would order her to stay with the engineers, she just knew it, but he was right too. There were only two of them. She lifted off and flew the shuttle to the base camp, but didn’t see Eric on the way. He was flying cagey, using a different route and not one direct to alpha site. She reminded herself to do the same on the way back. She kept her altitude down, dodging terrain and using it to stay out of sight, though if the raiders remained in orbit and took their time, they could easily track her. She hoped they were too impatient for that. It was all she could do.

  Hours later she landed at the base and powered down the shuttle, her eyes never straying far from the shuttle’s sensors. She grabbed
her rifle before debarking. It was the first time she had thought to need it here. Better safe than dead, she muttered under her breath as she hurried toward dome three. Number three contained all their supplies and the power plant. Eric had left the anti-grav palette loader in the entrance rather than park it properly. Signs of his hurried use of it were obvious. Crates and boxes had been stacked haphazardly where he had burrowed into the stacks for a particular item. One or two had toppled and broken open. Gina shook her head at the mess, but she would be making things worse in short order she had no doubt.

  She grabbed the control handle and guided the loader toward the back of the stacks. She knew where everything was. Her database had a full inventory. She parked the loader and put her rifle aside on one of the crates. Her first priority was power packs and filters for the suits. The suit PLSS used a rechargeable power pack, but they had to be removed for charging. That meant every person would need a spare. They couldn’t remove their suits to recharge them over night.

  She hurried along the stacks and found the crates she needed. There were a dozen power packs to a crate. She needed three. They were heavy and unwieldy, but she managed to drag them out one at a time and muscle them back to the loader. Vipers were strong, but the crates were too bulky to get a good grip. She managed and added cartons of filters before guiding the loader back to the shuttle to unload. She soon fell into a rhythm of loading and unloading. Power, and filters, water filtration and purifiers all went into the shuttle. Next she grabbed a couple of the portable generators. She knew Liz had some on site, but didn’t doubt more would be welcome. Her eyes fell upon a big crate marked Autochef 1off—Handle with care—Fragile! This way up! and decided to get it next. She unloaded and headed back to the dome.