Scout Pilot Of the Free Union

by Will Macmillan Jones

  Scout Pilot

  Of the Free Union

  Will Macmillan Jones

  First edition 2017 by Red Kite Publishing Limited

  www.redkitepublishing.net

  Text Copyright 2017 by Will Macmillan Jones

  Will Macmillan Jones asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, including but not limited to electronic, mechanical, photocopying or recording, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Find out more about the author on www.willmacmillanjones.com

  Cover art by Hazel Butler:

  ISBN:

  978-1545184639

  DEDICATION

  To everyone else who first watched The Daleks from behind a sofa or a cushion

  Other books by Will Macmillan Jones

  Paranormal Mysteries

  The Mister Jones Collection

  The Showing 2014

  Portrait of a Girl 2015

  The House Next Door 2016

  The Curse of Clyffe House 2016

  Demon’s Reach 2017

  Children’s Books

  Snort and Wobbles 2014

  Return of The Goblins 2015

  Fantastically Funny Fantasy:

  The Banned Underground Collection

  Too many to list!

  See www.thebannedunderground.com

  CONTENTS

  1

  Space Scout

  Pg 5

  2

  First Port of Call

  Pg 19

  3

  Derelict

  Pg 41

  4

  First Contact

  Pg 62

  5

  Running Repairs

  Pg 76

  6

  Secret Places

  Pg 106

  7

  Pass the Parcel

  Pg 140

  8

  Safety in Numbers

  Pg 176

  About the Author

  Pg 189

  Chapter One

  Space: the frontier.

  A heavy hand on each of my shoulders encouraged me to stop walking along the brightly-lit corridor. The same hands made it plain that I was not welcome to sit in the chair that sat beside the door to the Space Fleet Admiral’s office. I was slightly relieved to see that the door was closed, as it suggested that I was not at the top of the Admiral’s ‘To Do’ list for the day. However, my luck was not to hold out for too long. Barely five minutes had elapsed before the door was opened in a forward-looking, dynamic manner by the forward-looking and dynamic flag lieutenant who quite clearly was relishing this coming interview.

  “Punishment detail! Forward march!” barked the flag lieutenant.

  “I am a captain, so I outrank you, remember,” I told him in a reproving fashion.

  “Then advance to your just deserts, sir,” he sneered.

  The heavy hands of the two otherwise silent Space Corps marines descended on me again, and I was encouraged to march into the Admiral’s office. The door closed behind me, with a somewhat hollow sound. The Admiral sat at his desk with a series of papers arrayed before him and I was discouraged to see my photo on a number of them. Two civilian types stood behind the Admiral, and so I thought it best to try for a little military formality. I stopped in front of the desk, assumed my best impression of the military pose called ‘attention’ and saluted.

  “Right, you know why you are here,” the Admiral said to me without any niceties or preamble, or even returning the salute. His flag lieutenant may have sniggered, but I could not be too sure. The Admiral did not spare him a glance. “These two gentlemen are from the Free Union Diplomatic Office. They would rather, I suspect, prefer me to simply have you thrown out of the nearest airlock.”

  The two hefty marines shifted slightly behind me, and I braced myself in case they grabbed hold of me. “Sir,” I began.

  “Shut up. I speak, not you.” The Admiral was clearly in a bad mood, so I thought it wise to shut up and reflected on the events that had reduced me to this parlous position.

  *

  The comm speaker buzzed annoyingly, crackled and then filled the cabin with static noise. I sighed, and held my position. That was my position in the Free Union Star Fleet formation, of course. Inevitably, given my lack of seniority and the size of the StarDestroyer I commanded, we were located at the more dangerous periphery of the formation. Inside the ship, my position was more comfortable. I was relaxed in the pilot’s chair, with a cup of coffee in one hand and my ereader in the other, leaning back in the chair with my feet balanced on the edge of the console.

  The Free Union Star Fleet was in a defensive formation on the border of our territory with the Imperium, and we were there as a show of force. Two Free Union diplomats were to meet some bigwigs who were apparently important representatives of the Emperor, and so a good show of force was considered important. Personally, I thought it was either going to be extremely dangerous or a total waste of time, and very possibly both.

  “Anything on the screens, Cap?” The intercom relayed the voice of our engineer through my headphones.

  “Nothing, Mac,” I told him.

  “Do I need to keep the weapons at combat readiness then?” demanded the other member of the crew. Sheena was officially one of the best combat weapons operatives in the fleet, but opportunities for her vicious and deadly skills had been rather few and far between recently and she mostly dealt with her boredom by playing exceptionally violent computer games.

  “Beats me. That’s the last update we had from Fleetcom, but it all seems a bit silly to me.”

  Sheena made a very rude noise down the intercom, but I ignored it. A small tell-tale light began blinking urgently on the console near my right foot, but I ignored that too. Nothing good comes of looking at things like that in my experience; it only encourages the computers to misbehave.

  I lifted my coffee cup again: it was fresh and still a bit too hot to drink. Then all the warning alarms on board the ship set themselves off at once. Startled, I spilt the coffee into my lap and screamed, my feet jerking in a reflex action. One heel banged down onto a bright red button and all hell broke loose. I had smacked the safety guard and hit the emergency evasive action control. The ship immediately shot into a wild and unpredictable motion designed to avoid any incoming missiles, lasers, meteorites or messages from senior commanders. The latter was particularly welcome as our ship’s actions had immediately instigated the same automatic response in the nearby ships which then spread the emergency to the ships closest to them; and within seconds the carefully arranged precision formation to impress the Imperium delegates was a total shambles - just as the Imperium fleet left hyperspace in a prime position to observe the mess on their screens.

  The comms system hissed and a burst of nasty static obscured the worst of the Admiral’s swearing over the closed channel. “I know who started that! The culprit is on my screens now! The fleet will reassemble into formation immediately!” The commscreen in front of me changed from its accustomed comfortable blank grey colour to reveal the horrible, frothing face of the Fleet Admiral. I swallowed hard, rather than spray more coffee across the flight console. “Russell! My office. Nine am in two days.” T
he Admiral’s face vanished without waiting for a reply.

  “Cap, was that you?” asked Mac.

  “Umm, I think so,” I replied over the intercom.

  “What on earth did you do?” Sheena actually sounded subdued, which I found rather more frightening than the Admiral’s expression.

  “Cap, you kicked the ‘Panic’ button with your foot, didn’t you?” Mac sounded weary. “I’ve warned you a thousand times about that!”

  “Yeah, it was me. I spilled coffee on my bits when the warning of their fleet’s arrival went off. I jumped and kicked the button.”

  “Wow. Just wow.” Sheena was still subdued.

  I bent over the flight console, and resumed our position in the formation as it shook itself back into the designated shape. It might have been my imagination, but it did seem that the other ships in the fleet were keeping rather further away from us than was strictly required. The commscreen flashed back into life.

  “The Imperial delegation has arrived. Be alert.” The Admiral sounded nervous.

  “Like we need more lerts,” I grumbled quietly. Then I realised that my throat microphone was still live.

  “Say again!” demanded the Admiral.

  “Sir, sorry sir!” I said quickly. “Clearing my throat, sir.”

  The Admiral leant forward. The positioning of the camera gave me an unrivalled (and undesired) view of the hairs in his left nostril. “Two days, Captain. In fact, I’m ordering you to leave the formation now and return to Star Fleet Base. You may consider yourself under arrest, and your crew on leave until I return.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  The commscreen went blank, and I relayed the news to my crew members. Disappointingly, they were not too unhappy with the news that I had been arrested and they got a few days off to go drinking. With a feeling of foreboding, I reached for the controls and input our destination.

  *

  “So, the diplomats suggested that you could be handed over to the Imperium Mission,” carried on the Admiral.

  I gulped. “Did they?” The Imperium would no doubt not kill me. Or not for a very long time, however much I begged them to.

  “No, Captain. You are without doubt insubordinate, rude, and of doubtful competence to command a StarDestroyer; or in fact any vessel larger than a fork lift truck in a warehouse. And even then, I would have every confidence in your skill at causing mayhem.”

  Silence is golden, someone said: so I decided not to reply. The Admiral glared at me for a long time while I held my breath.

  “However,” he said at last, “you do have a facility for mayhem so I’ve decided not to dispense with your life just yet.”

  I breathed again. Even with the cigar fumes in the cabin it felt good.

  “And it cost The Free Union a fortune to train you.”

  That seemed more realistic.

  “You can keep your rank.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief for my paygrade.

  “But you will be transferred to the Star Fleet Reconnaissance Unit with immediate effect.”

  “Er, could you give me to the Imperium instead, Sir?”

  “What?”

  “Well, both are certain death and the Emperor’s torturers might be quick about it.”

  “That in itself is a validation of my decision. Survive a year and you will be transferred back to General Duties.”

  “Can I have that in writing, please, Sir?”

  “Take him away.” The Admiral waved at his two goon and heavy hands descended on my shoulders. I did salute, but as the heavies had already spun me around by then I was saluting the blank door. Somehow it seemed appropriate. I was marched out into the corridor and the Admiral’s door slammed shut behind me.

  “You are expected at the Reconnaissance Unit, Captain,” said one of the guards.

  “I’m sure that I can find it,” I told him.

  “I’m sure that you will,” replied the guard. He and his fellow marched one regular pace behind me as I made my disconsolate way through the fleet headquarters. Many were the pitying glances I received – followed normally by raucous laughter and insults.

  The Reconnaissance Unit was situated at the unfashionable end of Star Base. By the time we got there the corridors had ceased to be gleaming and pristine, and had taken on the appearance of a nightclub after the party was over. Technically the senior officer of the unit carried Star Commander rank; but in practice everyone knew that further promotion from this position was unlikely and of course that applied to those unfortunate enough to be posted to this part of the fleet.

  The guards marched me up to the Commander’s office door. One bent down and huffed on the name plate on the door, and polished it theatrically with a tissue. The name plate looked no cleaner when he had finished. The other smirked at me, knocked on the door and opened it without ceremony.

  “This is where we leave you,” he said to me. They casually saluted the Star Commander, who beckoned me to enter the office, and left. I entered the office feeling like a man walking into a condemned cell in a prison. Certainly the office was no more welcoming a place. It was spartan in the extreme, and the Star Commander himself had clearly stamped his personality on the room. There were no personal items, no photographs of past triumphs or family; possibly the Commander had neither to display.

  “So,” the Commander said without preamble, “you are the latest disaster wished upon me.”

  “Sir.” It is an established tradition in the military, from time immemorial, that faced with an uncertain future it may be the only reply that cannot be used against you by your senior officer.

  “You know what we do here?”

  “Sir.”

  “Is that a ‘Yes, sir’ sir or a ‘No, sir’ sir?”

  “Sir.”

  The Commander sighed. “Look. You’ve been wished on me. I know why, the whole Star Fleet knows why. I can’t pretend that I’m happy about it, but we will both have to make the best of it.”

  “Sir.”

  “The pilots here do not have their own quarters, because they spend so much time out on patrol. Everyone shares what space is free. The canteen produces food at times if there are enough staff here to warrant it. It is unusual for any of the staff to use the main Star Base facilities, although as far as I am aware there is no official stricture in place: I just find my staff end up restricting themselves to this sector.”

  I nodded to show that I understood. This was worse than I had imagined.

  “It helps team building and esprit de corps.”

  From what I had heard, esprit de corpse was more appropriate. Reconnaissance scout pilots had a more exciting time than the other Star Fleet pilots, and according to rumour a lot of that was spent screaming.

  “I have assigned you a ship. Dock 421. Perhaps you should get settled in and acquaint yourself with the flight manual. I will expect you here at 0100 UTC tomorrow for your first mission briefing.”

  “Sir, my skill test certificate is current on single pilot craft as well as multicrew ships.”

  “I’m sure it is. However, our equipment is not always the latest specification, so refresh yourself before flight.”

  I could think of nothing to say, so said it, saluted and left. Illuminated signs, frequently with missing bulbs, pointed the way to the Reconnaissance Dock and before long I was looking at the ship in Dock 421 with horror.

  “I might as well save time and effort and kill myself now,” I muttered aloud.

  “Now, now; she may be old but she’ll fly,” said a voice behind me.

  I turned around. A technician in a very dirty overall stood there, smiling (or possibly leering) at me.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “I’m the Reconnaissance Unit chief mechanic. I’m the one who keeps the birds flying.”

  “Birds?”

  “Aye. These babies are Speedbird Class Scouts, so birds, see?”

  “Speedbirds?” I was appalled. “So they are at least one hundred and fifty years old, then
? Or in more professional terms, obsolete?”

  “Vintage, maybe.”

  “Death traps, more like!”

  The mechanic chuckled. “She’ll fly, boy, don’t you worry.”

  “Where do you get the parts?”

  “Oh, that’s no problem. Any unit that finds a wreck sends them over to us. Star Fleet standing orders.”

  “But aren’t the parts covered by Time-Life protocols? Surely you just don’t keep reusing them in the hope they will work!”

  “There’s no budget here for the fancy stuff, lad. I just keeps the birds flying until one of the boys forgets to bring one home.”

  The mechanic took his cap off and I correctly interpreted the gesture. The pilot didn’t forget to get back to Star Base, it was that his memory had been forcibly separated from his body. “Does it happen often?” I asked, pretending indifference.