[01] Elite: Wanted (3 page)

Ravindra sighed inwardly.

‘We agreed to do this, and it would be very difficult to back out now. Is that what you want to do?’

‘No,’ Jonty said, shaking his head. ‘Just wanted to know exactly where we stand.’

‘Whit’s Station control has given us clearance for departure,’ Orla told them all.

‘Okay, let’s get out of this atmosphere. I feel heavy,’ Ravindra said. She raised her hands from the seat and the holographic control gloves shimmered into life around them. The information in her lenses told her that the internal doors to the docking berth had been sealed. The atmosphere was rapidly being evacuated. With a flick of her fingers she started the music as the rest of the crew went about their assigned tasks. Bach’s ‘Air on the G-String’ started playing in the background as the doors opened in front of them. Motherlode was a curved plane filling half the view through the entirely transparent front of the bridge. The top half of their view was black and filled with stars.

Ravindra moved them to hover and brought the landing struts up so smoothly that they barely felt it. The nose of the
Song of Stone
dipped forward slightly, as though bowing, and then moved swiftly out into Motherlode’s turbulent atmosphere. Ravindra triggered the manoeuvring engines, a three-quarter burn upwards. She swung the
Song
around one-hundred-and-eighty degrees. They raced up past Whit’s Station and were almost immediately shrouded in a nimbus of flame. The gees forced them back into their acceleration couches, which did their best to compensate for the pressure. Ravindra didn’t want to risk turning her neck too sharply at that moment so she moved her fingers in the holographic control glove and a small window appeared in her vision. She could see the sleek, wedge-shaped lines of the Mk. III Cobra keeping pace with her. It was the most familiar shape in space, the most common craft, workhorse of the trade routes and the first ship that most pilots ever owned. She had flown many herself, though Newman’s had been heavily modified. It was optimised for combat and boarding actions.

Stars stopped being fractal lines and became dots of light again as they dropped out of hyperspace in a burst of light.

‘Running active scans harsh enough to give them cancer,’ Orla muttered. Ravindra double-checked the coordinates and then found herself searching the blackness ahead of them while she waited for the result of the active scans. The Cobra appeared next to them. If the other ship had a name – and all ships should have a name in Ravindra’s opinion – then she hadn’t been made aware of it. But she was impressed with the piloting. Newman’s pilot was holding it perfectly in formation despite the jump.

‘Found it,’ Orla said.

Her lenses projected the coordinates directly into Ravindra’s vision. Her fingers moved slightly and the
Song of Stone
banked and went after the target ship at full burn. All of them were pushed back into their acceleration couches. The Cobra was barely a millisecond behind.

‘She’s running.’ Orla told them.

‘Juicing the manoeuvring drive,’ Jenny told them.

‘Missiles on standby,’ Jonty said. He would wait until they had closed before triggering them.

‘Fly the black flag,’ Ravindra told them.

Orla moved her fingers slightly and a small data-packet was sent to the other ship. If they opened it they would see a red screen with an animated hourglass on it. The animation would show that they were rapidly running out of time.

‘They’re broadcasting a distress …’ Orla said. ‘Jamming.’

Harsh light drew a red line in space between the
Song
and the other craft as Harnack fired the military grade laser again and again, whittling down their target’s shield. Ravindra could only just make out the glow of the other vessel’s engines.

They closed with the other craft rapidly. Two missiles shot past the bridge, their engines burning brightly, moving at gees that would have pulped a living being.

‘I hope you didn’t go overboard,’ Harnack managed through teeth gritted due to the acceleration.

‘Me too,’ Jonty said. Ravindra didn’t like how unsure he sounded. They did not want to destroy the ship.

The missile payloads blossomed in light and force and were almost immediately snuffed out by vacuum, but not before they’d done their damage. There was more harsh red light as Harnack fired the military laser again.

‘Their shields are down,’ Orla told them.

‘It’s an Orca,’ Jenny said. ‘I’ve highlighted the manoeuvring engines, the jump drive, comms and weapons on the specs.’

‘Targeting,’ Harnack said. This time he fired the beam laser. Using the military laser against an unshielded craft would probably destroy it. Ravindra was aware of Newman’s Cobra firing its beam laser as well. They were close enough to make out the beleaguered ship now. It was a once luxurious, sleek, elegant, finned, mostly transparent, multi-level yacht, a plaything of the super rich. Now it was a burnt, partially destroyed, near-wreck. There was at least one hull breach in one of the transparent areas of the upper hull. Ravindra guessed one of the missiles had done it. She was less than pleased.

The
Stone
’s shield lit up as it took multiple hits from the Orca’s defensive pulse laser. Ravindra banked sharply. You couldn’t dodge something moving at the speed of light but you could move erratically enough to avoid civilian-grade targeting systems. The Cobra fired its beam laser again and destroyed the Orca’s pulse. Harnack had targeted the Orca’s jump drive first, to stop it running, then the comms, which Orla and the Cobra had been jamming since the moment they had arrived in system. Now he was removing the yacht’s ability to manoeuvre, though it would continue on its current trajectory at its current velocity.

‘Prepare to be boarded,’ Orla transmitted to the other ship. Her voice would be received disguised. It would have the whining accent of someone from Capital in the Achenar system, the Empire’s home world. ‘Make this easy on us and nobody will get hurt. Any resistance will result in your deaths and we get what we want anyway.’ Orla finished the transmission and ignored the counter-threats, not even bothering to play them to the rest of the crew.

‘Anyone get killed in the breach?’ Jenny asked.

Orla drew patterns in light with her hologramatic control gloves, giving commands to the ship’s scanners.

Ravindra was still annoyed with the excessive violence as she brought the
Song
into overwatch position above the Orca. She had no problem with killing but it upped the stakes and tended to complicate things.

‘Locking missiles on,’ Jonty said. It was a warning, letting the Orca know that they meant business. Harnack would keep the rest of the weapons free to deal with any other external threats.

‘If they lost anyone in the breach then I can’t find them amongst the debris,’ Orla told Jenny. ‘I’m scanning enough people on board to suggest a full crew, passengers and a security detail.’

‘Let’s hope that they’re not stupid enough to fight,’ Jenny muttered. Ravindra silently agreed with the engineer.

The Cobra banked down past the
Song
and came alongside the Orca. They watched as the Cobra matched speed and then extended its docking arm,

‘They’re in,’ Orla said moments later.

‘What were they doing out here?’ Jenny wondered out loud.

‘Payload exchange,’ Jonty guessed.

‘Yeah, but what?’

‘Yacht like that, the owner’s got to be a collector,’ Jonty suggested. ‘I’m thinking alien artefact.’

‘Okay, that’s enough speculation,’ Ravindra said. She glanced across at Orla. Normally her first mate would have cracked down on such chatter while Ravindra concentrated on flying. She did not like the look on Orla’s face.

‘What’s wrong?’ Ravindra asked. Then a flash below her caught her eye. They were about hundred metres over the stern of the Orca. The flash had come from inside the yacht.

‘Gunfire,’ Harnack said. There were more flashes from inside the yacht.

Orla moved her hands and the live feed from Newman’s comms came over the bridge’s speakers. Gunfire drowned out all other sounds for a moment, then they heard the screaming and the sobbing.

‘We’ve given you what you want … please—’ a man begged, then there was a long scream that tapered into choking sobs.

Ravindra swallowed hard.

‘That’s not for me. You, all of you, you’re for me.’ It was Newman’s voice. Everyone except Orla turned to look at Ravindra.

‘Nothing’s changed,’ she told them. ‘Orla, tell that sick bastard to get back on his ship right now.’

‘Newman, if you’ve got the payload then we are leaving, you understand me?’ Orla said over the comms link. She was answered by more gunfire.

A blinking icon appeared in Ravindra’s vision. Jonty was asking permission to arm a very particular weapon.

‘Arm it,’ she told him. ‘You drop it on my command only.’

Jonty’s fingers moved within his holographic control glove.

‘Patch me through,’ Ravindra told Orla, who did so. ‘Newman, make sure everyone’s dead and get back on your fucking ship right now.’

‘You’ll do what you’re paid for, do you understand me?’ Newman said calmly over the comms link. There was more gunfire and screaming in the background.

‘Listen to me, we’re not leaving any evidence or witnesses behind, do you understand?’ It was a direct threat. Piracy was one thing. Multiple murder was another. Right now it didn’t matter if some of the passengers and the crew on the Orca were dead, or all of them – legally speaking. It did matter in terms of evidence collection and witness statements, however.

‘Understood,’ Newman said. Even across the comms link she could hear his begrudging tone.

They waited tensely for what seemed like a very long time, but in actuality it was only a few minutes. Then they saw the Cobra detach from the yacht. Orla was shaking her head.

‘What?’ Ravindra asked. The first mate pointed. Three lifepods shot away from the yacht. ‘The fools. Jonty, drop it.’

Ravindra moved her fingers, preparing for a hard burn. It was Newman and his crew’s hard luck if they couldn’t keep up.

‘E-bomb gone,’ Jonty said.

Acceleration slammed all of them back into their chairs. Behind them energy connected all matter in what looked like an electrical display. Behind them space whited out, and the force of the exploding energy bomb buffeted the
Song
as it destroyed everything.

They had just blown more than half the profit they were likely to get from this job by dropping the E-bomb. Ravindra was mostly disappointed to see the Cobra make it out of the blast radius. She was a little relieved as well. It had the payload on board, after all.

Ziva rammed the throttle wide open and threw the Fer-de-Lance into a tight spin, spitting out countermeasures in a classic tesseract pattern. Her wingman, a second Fer-de-Lance, shot between the incoming missiles and her countermeasure bloom, adding to the confusion, but it didn’t make a difference. The Cobra Mk. III was still coming at her. Somehow it had shot all four of her missiles before they’d burst and scattered their warheads and now the Cobra was firing steadily at her with frightening accuracy. Whatever software it was running was unreal and she wanted it.

The second Fer-de-Lance twisted away. He always did that. ‘Turn and take him head on you weasel,’ she muttered.

A lucky shot from the Cobra punched a hole through the crystal titanium skin over the Fer-de-Lance’s port engine. Several cubic centimetres of ablative armour vaporised and took most of the laser’s sting, but not quite enough. Even at this range, the beam of the Cobra’s military laser was still needle thin. The last vestiges stabbed into the engine’s heart and wrecked a power relay no bigger than a thumbnail. A magnetic containment field, already strained to breaking point by Ziva’s frantic manoeuvring, collapsed and raw plasma at eight million Kelvin erupted through the port engine, scouring everything. Damage control cut in at once, raising a magnetic shield and deflecting the plasma outward. The starboard engine started adjusting to compensate but it wasn’t fast enough. The rogue plasma burst out of the ship, kicking it sideways, rupturing the port engine cowling as it went. The kick was hard, hard enough that it almost knocked Ziva out. The ship started to tumble, frantically dumping heat from the engines and ruining Ziva’s perfect countermeasure tesseract.

Before she could do a thing about it, the two chasing missiles arrived milliseconds apart. Their proximity fuses triggered and both warheads burst around her into a scatter of pinhead-sized anti-hydrogen mines. Invisible and lethal. Two seconds later, the first mine hit and the Fer-de-Lance bloomed in a blaze of energy. Overwhelmed shields collapsed and the ship, missiles and mines exploded together with the gamma-flash of a dying star. That was the thing about the Fer-de-Lance: it was a true thoroughbred of a ship but with so much performance crammed into such a tight envelope that it didn’t have the backups and built-in redundancy of the more robust Cobra. Too many single points of failure.

The other Fer-de-Lance frantically ejected countermeasures of its own and darted behind the radiation burst that had once been Ziva’s ship. Its fusion plume flared as the pilot floored the throttle to get away. He turned and ran. The follow-up salvo of missiles from the pursuing Cobra fuzed on the decoys.

Ziva crashed out of the simulation and slammed the flight panel of the
Dragon Queen
in disgust. ‘Fuck! Again!’

‘Would you like to try one more time?’ The
Dragon Queen
was offering her a restart. Ziva took two deep breaths, considered it and then shook her head; the simulation obediently shut down and the stars of deep space filled her vision once more. The
Dragon Queen
was a Fer-de-Lance too. She wasn’t the same model as the one from the simulation, not even much like it under the skin, not with a hundred years of technical evolution between them, but that wasn’t the point. The Fer-de-Lance was then, was now, and always would be
the
best long-range interceptor ever built. There was no way that any generation of Cobra should out-fight one, certainly not two of them and
certainly
not when
she
was one of the pilots. In the right hands there simply wasn’t a better ship, never had been and never would be. Yet every time she ran the simulation of Jameson’s last recorded engagement, he beat her. Yes, by then he was a legend, one of the Elite, the great name of the Pilots’ Federation back when they’d been so absurdly picky about who they let in. There were probably only about six people across known space in those days who’d
really
made it to the elite council …