by Dan Worth
Isaacs brought the Profit Margin to a screaming halt above the crawler, whose driver had now realised that they were no longer being pursued and was bringing the vehicle to a halt. The left rear wheel, mangled by gunfire, bumped awkwardly along the dusty ground.
Holding the vessel steady on AG, Isaacs lowered the boarding ramp over the crawler as Anna signalled to its occupants. After a few moments, four suited figures clutching several items of baggage emerged from the top hatch of the vehicle and scrambled into the waiting ship. Once everyone was aboard, Isaacs closed the ramp, aimed the nose of the vessel skywards and pushed the throttle to maximum. As the Profit Margin shot upwards towards the clouds Anna began signalling to the rest of the Hidden Hand force.
‘Able, this Charlie. We have our guests aboard. You may commence with the next stage.’
‘Jesus Able, you certainly took your sweet time down there. You run into a few difficulties?’
‘A little welcoming party, yeah.’
‘Alright, Baker’s jumping in now. Able out.’
The Profit Margin cleared the thick yellow cloud deck and climbed towards space at the head of a spear of plasma.
As the Churchill jumped in barely two kilometres from the Hidden Hand fleet, Chen swept her gaze across the tactical situation on her HUD. Goldstein had brought them out of their jump right on top of the pirates. Good. She smiled in satisfaction. A ragged collection of corvettes was strung out in a loose formation. They would be easy prey for the main guns of the carrier. She was about to give the order to fire when another wing of ships jumped in. Vendiri corvettes, blunt and ugly things. Singh raised the alarm:
‘Admiral, I’m detecting anti-matter warheads aboard that new wing of vessels!’
Maria saw space distort out of the corner of her eye. Bringing her ship around, she saw to her horror the massive bulk of the Saturn class carrier blotting out the stars as it emerged from hyperspace. The vessel was huge and bristling with armaments. A voice cut in over the comm., the calm translated tones of Captain Vakkulak at the head of his wing of corvettes.
‘Baker wing arriving on station. We are preparing to fire. What the…’
With alarm she realised that Baker wing were also emerging from their jump. The radiological signatures of the AM warheads they were carrying would be clear as day to the carrier’s sensors at this range. As Maria swung her vessel around away from the looming warship and began powering forward she yelled frantically over the comm. to the other vessels
‘All ships this is Able one! Abort mission! Repeat, abort mission! Execute emergency jump pattern.’
The Churchill opened fire with its forward anti-fighter turrets. Converging beams from the rapid firing laser weapons tore Baker wing apart in a matter of seconds. Maria registered their demise as she desperately twisted her ship away from the line of fire. Her co-pilot meanwhile punched frantically at the navigational computer in an attempt to initiate their escape jump. The rest of Able squadron were scattering too as the attack turned into a rout.
‘Pirate vessels, this is Admiral Chen of the Commonwealth Navy carrier Winston S. Churchill.’ The clipped businesslike tones cut in over her comm. ‘You will power down your vessels or you will be fired upon. Rest assured if you attempt to escape you will be pursued by our fighter squadrons and hunted down.’
As if to illustrate her point a wing of Daemon class space superiority fighters sped from the Churchill’s bow catapults.
‘What do you think?’ said Maria’s co-pilot, a panicky looking man by the name of Lin. ‘You think we should comply? They’ve locked onto us and we’re well within range of their guns.’
‘I say we take our chances,’ said Maria over the chiming of the lock-on warning. ‘Let them try and follow us.’ She punched the jump drive activation sequence and prayed that her rear shields would hold against the barrage until they were clear.
Wheezing from the sulphurous air slowly leaking into the broken ship, Cox hauled himself upright and pulled an emergency breathing mask over his face. The cool, clean oxygen was a relief to his tortured lungs. He looked about the cabin, which tilted crazily downwards and to the left. Most of the crew were still alive, though a stray piece of shrapnel from the engine had taken off the co-pilot’s head and filled the cockpit with a mass of gore. The pilot seemed to be just conscious, although his helmeted head lolled oddly against his seat. Most of the marines seemed dazed but okay, having been fully armoured when the impact had taken place. They had managed to seal their combat suits and were groggily collecting their equipment. Reynaud lay in a semi-conscious heap at the rear of the craft, apparently having been thrust into an emergency suit.
Cox reached under the cockpit console and activated the emergency beacon, then settled down to wait for rescue.
Chen saw the pirate ships trying to jump out.
‘God damn it. Gunnery control, open fire on all ships!’ she barked angrily. The remaining vessels were subjected to a barrage of fire as they attempted to flee.
‘Gunnery. Report.’
‘Firing was partially successful. We’re seeing debris from three ships. The jump drive on one other malfunctioned, so there’s nothing left of that one. We think the remaining two escaped.’
‘Roger that,’ Chen replied. ‘Commander Singh, track those fleeing ships and relay the information to our fighters. I want to find out where the hell they’re running to.’
‘Aye, Admiral.’ Singh peered at his console for a second. ‘Admiral we have an additional incoming contact approaching from the moon’s surface. It’s coming from the region where Cox had hidden his base. Admiral… it’s the Profit Margin!’
Isaacs’ curiosity was first peaked by the distant flashes in the darkening sky above them, towards which the Profit Margin was climbing at full throttle. It would be several minutes until they were far enough out of the moon’s gravity well to activate the jump drive.
‘What the fuck? Anna, get Maria on the comm. and find out what’s going on up there.’
‘I’m trying, there’s no response… oh shit.’ She noticed the new contact now visible to the ship’s sensors. ‘It’s a warship, a big one. Looks like the game’s up. It’s that Saturn class carrier. It’s launching fighters. Shit, they already took out all of Baker wing. Look at the size of that thing!’
‘Yeah, well let’s see if I can talk our way out of this.’
‘Oh? Nice. We really are fucked then.’
‘Lemme talk to Anita. Anita? Under no circumstances will you fire our weapons. We need to play this cool.’
There was a mumbled response.
‘You really think she’s likely to?’ said Anna. ‘After what happened back there? I…’
She turned at the sound of footsteps on the decking. Rekkid and Katherine had made their way forward into the cockpit. They seated themselves in the additional positions behind Isaacs and Anna.
‘How are we doing?’ said Katherine. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Ahh… that’s a little hard to say at the moment,’ Anna replied. ‘Right now we’re headed straight for a Navy carrier that just wiped out half of our friends and my faithful husband here intends to charm his way out.’
As if in response the comm. crackled into life. Voice only.
‘Good evening Captain Isaacs. This is Chen. You and I need to talk. Right now. Please dock with us immediately. I am dispatching fighters to escort you in.’
Isaacs realised that Chen’s request was couched within an air of menace. He did his best to sound casual
‘Uh, listen Admiral, it’s nice to see you. You know I was hoping you’d get in touch again. I sure could use another one of those jobs. Listen, what the hell just happened here? I saw firing…’
‘Captain. Your vessel has just come from an area on the moon’s surface that has just come under attack. I think you might know what just happened here, however I need to talk to you about something else. We’ve been looking for you Cal. I need to talk to you… about what keeps you awake at nights.’
‘Cal, we’ll have reached minimum safe jump distance in thirty seconds,’ said Anna. ‘Co-ordinates are punched in and ready to go.’
Isaacs didn’t reply. He stared incredulously at Chen’s image. What did she know?
Rekkid leaned over and spoke smoothly.
‘Admiral Chen, it’s a pleasure to meet you again. This is Professor Cor. Doctor O’Reilly is with me and we need to talk to you right now about what Cox and his team have been doing down there.’
There was moment’s silence, then Chen spoke again.
‘I… Professor Cor, this is a surprise,’ she replied. ‘I should have known you two would be involved in this debacle somehow… we’ll speak once you’ve docked.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Anna, and punched the jump drive. The Profit Margin vanished into hyperspace in a ripple of space-time.
‘What the hell are you doing!?’ cried Rekkid. ‘We need to talk to her!’
‘Our orders were to return these two to base. Besides, she’s Navy. I don’t trust her,’ Anna replied sharply. ‘That woman’s killed a lot of our kind of people in her time. We dock with that carrier and they’ll take this ship apart until there’s nothing left but nuts and bolts, and I doubt Cal and I will see the outside of a jail cell for the next decade at least. If they trace us back to Port Royal we’re all screwed.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Cal replied. ‘It sounded like she genuinely wanted to speak to me. She knows something… about what happened to me, about what we’re facing.’
‘Drop the ship out of its jump,’ said Katherine. ‘We have to go back.’
‘We can’t,’ said Anna. ‘The ship’s locked into a pre-programmed jump sequence back to Port Royal. The margins are so fine that if we interfere it could be disastrous. You don’t want to plunge into a star, now do you?’
‘We have to get a message to her somehow,’ said Katherine. ‘There’s got to be a way of doing it so that it won’t compromise you. Chen’s ship isn’t regular Navy, she and her crew are part of Special Operations Command and they aren’t fighting pirates.’
‘They’re fighting the Shapers, aren’t they?’ said Isaacs.
Katherine nodded slowly.
Chen saw the Profit Margin vanish from view just off the port bow and cursed under her breath. She turned to Singh.
‘Commander, do you have a fix on their jump signature?’
‘Yes Admiral, I’m relaying the information to our recon wings now.’
‘Can we pursue them with the Churchill?’ she asked.
‘I’d advise against it,’ Singh responded. ‘Based on their trajectory it looks like they’re pulling the same trick as before and if a ship this size ends up that deep inside a gravity well…’
‘I know. We’ll let our recon wings handle it.’ She thumped the arm of her command couch. ‘God damn you Isaacs,’ she muttered and gazed out toward the point of the Profit Margin’s departure
Chapter 23
On the edges of the Hadar system, the Profit Margin emerged from its jump and docked quickly with Port Royal. The docking bay lights stood out clearly as concentric rectangular patterns against the dark mountain of rock and ice. The ship slid into the bay and settled onto the hangar deck, which now stood noticeably empty of ships. Many of those that had made it back were badly damaged, their hulls buckled and punctured by the high energy impacts of the Churchill’s weapons. By comparison, the Profit Margin was unscathed save for smears of sulphurous dust that had stuck to the hull’s static charge.
Isaacs ran the ship through its shut down sequence and looked over at Anna, who stared forlornly out at the empty landing pads on the deck and thought of her missing comrades. It had taken them over an hour to finally shake off the patrols that Chen had deployed. Her Navy bloodhounds were good. It was just as well that Isaacs was better.
‘Hey,’ he said, leaning over. ‘Look I’m really sorry about those guys. Maybe a few more will make it back before the day’s out.’
She waved him off. ‘It’s not your fault,’ she said. ‘It was me, I fucked up. It was my mission and I killed them.’
‘Hey,’ Isaacs replied sharply, chastising her for her own self pity. ‘You have to stop that right now! You weren’t to know that the Churchill would spot us. The Nahabe fed you shitty intel about the disposition of their recon wings.’
‘Or maybe they just didn’t bother to tell us and considered it an acceptable expenditure of personnel if the operation destroyed that Shaper ship, did you consider that?’
‘Anna, those other crews knew what they were getting into. You go flying around with antimatter weapons and you know you’re going to get fired upon if you get spotted doing it. Come on, let’s go see The Speaker. I think he has some explaining to do. Besides, he’ll want to greet our guests, won’t he?’
‘Yeah, sure,’ she replied distractedly, then smiled and pointed out of the port side of the cockpit. ‘At least Maria made it back, look.’
Isaacs peered over and saw the battered form of the Pre-Emptive Strike settle unsteadily into its berth, the corvette’s starboard engine having been reduced to misshapen slag. Other dark lines of carbon scoring criss-crossed the aft portion of the vessel and the ship’s atmospheric control fins were peppered with holes.
He smiled, got up from his seat and walked stiffly towards the door.
‘See?’ he said. ‘I told you more would make it back. I guess your friends were better pilots than I anticipated.’
‘You think now is the time for one-up-manship? You’d better see to our guests Cal,’ she replied coldly.
Isaacs snorted and walked out. She heard him calling aft for the two academics, who had retired during the journey to one of the small passenger cabins.
Farouk she knew fairly well anyway. He and his brother had been running errands for the Hidden Hand since even before she’d joined, but she wasn’t sure what to make of the pair of archaeologists. They seemed pleasant enough, in the distracted sort of way that academics often appeared to her. Both of them, she was sure, knew far more about their current situation than they were letting on. She had noticed them conferring quietly in their cabin, and huddling around the slim Arkari made computer that they had brought with them.
‘Seems like we’ve arrived at last,’ said Rekkid, listening to the sounds of the ship die away.
‘Hmm, looked like some sort of asteroid base or something on approach,’ Katherine replied, having called up an external view on the windowless cabin’s view-screen. ‘Maybe we’re in the system’s main belt?’
‘I think we’re further out than that,’ Rekkid replied. ‘It looked far too dark outside. My guess is that were somewhere in the Kuiper belt, or on a rogue un-catalogued body far above the ecliptic.’
‘That’d make sense. It would make it particularly hard for the Navy to find.’
‘Hmm. I guess our hosts won’t be too keen if we try to contact Chen then.’
‘Well, the fact that they just wasted a Navy facility and she just shot a load of their ships out of the sky made that fairly clear.’
‘Yes… but what about our Captain Isaacs, the saviour of the hour. The two of them seemed to know one another. I wonder what his story is?’ Rekkid said thoughtfully.
At that point the door opened and Isaacs stepped inside. He looked exhausted. A sheen of sweat coated his brow and his flight gear stank.
‘Ah, the man himself!’ said Rekkid. ‘I take it we’ve arrived at… wherever you’ve brought us to?’
‘Yeah, welcome to Port Royal, secret base of the Hidden Hand, or what’s left of them anyway.’ Isaacs let out a weary sigh. ‘Listen, you guys want to grab your stuff and come with me? I gather you’ll be provided with temporary quarters and what passes for leadership around here wants to talk to you I expect.’ He rolled his eyes theatrically.
As he left the small cabin, Isaacs saw Anita standing awkwardly in the corridor. She hadn’t spoken to him since they’d left Rhyolite. She looked utterly miserable.
‘I’m sorry Cal. I’m sorry I fucked up. I…’
‘Hey,’ he said softly. ‘It’s not easy to fire a weapon at another human being. I don’t know… maybe you should be proud of yourself.’
‘I should?’
‘Yeah. There’s precious few people who would hesitate before killing someone around here these days.’
The Speaker was waiting for them in one of Port Royal’s hydroponic caverns that served as both farmland, park and atmospheric recycler for the residents of the base. The creature’s dark obelisk floated above a manicured lawn surrounded by vine draped trees of terrestrial origin. The scent of the flowers from the vines hung heavy in the air beneath the unnatural glow of the cavern’s light tube.
Katherine and Rekkid looked about them in curiosity at the strange scene whilst Anna’s mouth compressed itself into a thin, angry line at the sight of the Nahabe. Isaacs noted that the two archaeologists took much of what they were seeing in their stride. He stood and watched as Anna strode over towards The Speaker and began to remonstrate with it.
‘I hope you intend to apologise,’ she began. ‘That mission was fucked up from the start! Jesus, how could you people not know that the Navy would be all over us after we jumped in! You must have known! Is that what you call an acceptable risk? Is that all we are to you, dispensable cannon fodder to be thrown away? Well fuck you; we lost a lot of good people today!’
The Nahabe did not speak at first. It remained silent at Anna’s diatribe, floating before her as she stood poised and incandescent with rage.