[05] Elite: Reclamation (10 page)

His message delivered, Dalk swiftly left the ruined bedroom.

***

Ships belonging to the wedding guests were fleeing the palace in a panic. News of the assassination was already hitting the moon-side newsfeeds and would quickly be disseminated across the surrounding systems.

One ship, a smart Imperial vessel that had unloaded a cargo of foodstuffs earlier that afternoon, was parked towards the rear of the palace. A capsule, carried in the manner of a coffin with some difficulty by six Imperial Guards, was being taken aboard via the vessel’s stern boarding ramp. The ramp retracted moments after they were all inside and, with a faint whine, the vessel’s drives ignited. It lifted off gracefully, extending its twin engine nacelles into flight configuration and angling itself upwards into the heavens.

As it rose above the palace, two small fighter craft of similar design swooped in from behind the nearby mountains and arranged themselves alongside, accompanying it as it thrust upwards with ever increasing speed. Within seconds all three ships were dwindling dots in the sky, leaving Chione far behind.

Chapter Three

The Imperial Cutter
Caduceus
continued its flight outbound from Chione. The moon had already receded to a thin crescent on the aft display, accompanied by its parent, Daedalion. From this vantage point they looked like a double planet, their water-dominated surfaces casting a bright blue glow through space.

Retaining their tight escort formation, the two Imperial fighters were just visible through the port and starboard observation windows, their sensors keeping a close watch for any unexpected heat signatures. There was no sign of pursuit. Traffic ought to have been light out here; most of the ships in the Prism system were freighters and their escorts, concerned only with docking alongside the orbital space station and ore processing facility,
Hiram’s Anchorage
. Efficiency and a quick turnaround meant that most ships hyperspaced out as soon as they cleared the immediate navigation space of the station and Chione’s gravity well.

The
Caduceus’
captain had deliberately taken the decision to drive his ship deep into interplanetary space using its frame-shift drive. He was wary of being followed. With the right equipment, savvy pursuers could ‘hitch’ onto your hyperspace entry point, potentially arriving at your destination before you did. That always led to an unpleasant reception. Better to make sure no one was following you before you jumped.

‘Secure drives,’ he ordered. The helm officer responded with a quick series of finger gestures. The faint hint of acceleration abruptly faded away. The captain, satisfied that all was in order, called up the visual cue for his seat to release him.

It was an experience he’d never really acclimatised to. A viscous gel-like fluid, eased away from his extremities, returning to storage in the base of the chair. It left no moisture behind, but the sensation was as if hundreds of groping and invasive fingertips had run themselves over the length of his body. He was unable to prevent his customary shudder.

His boots activated a moment later, clamping themselves to the floor. He stood up, grasping an overhead railing and surveying the small bridge.

‘All hands, observe zero-G protocol. We jump in fifteen minutes.’

The navigation officer, seated next to the helm officer, turned around.

‘All sensors dark sir, no signs of pursuit.’

The captain nodded. ‘Plot the jump for Haoria, let me know when we’re ready. I’ll be in the cargo bay. Babysitting detail.’

The navigation officer grinned and turned back to his work. The captain turned and made his way to the rear of the bridge. A series of recessed hand and foot grips led downward to a lower level, but he ignored them, simply pushing gently and allowing himself to float to the deck below. His boots clamped on once more and he strode rearwards.

***

The
Caduceus’
cargo bay was not usually pressurised; there was no point. Automechs loaded and unloaded the large cargo canisters from the hold without supervision and any perishable materials were handled in self-contained systems, bringing their life support or temperature compensations along with them.

This trip was an exception. The captain unlocked the bulkhead door, stepped through and secured it behind him, taking a moment to appreciate the internal size of the bay. It was a rare opportunity to see his vessel from this perspective. Pods were stacked in orderly rows and columns; he knew more than two hundred of them were secured aboard.

The cargo bay was functional of course, its designers mindful that it would be seldom seen. It was efficiently and flexibly laid out, but the captain, with a small smile of recognition, spotted the designers’ nods to Imperial mores; a hint of baroque decoration here, straps with buckles wrought as claws and hands, subtle use of Imperial colours to enhance the sense of grandeur.

The captain stepped towards the centre rear of the bay, where a space had been reserved for the special cargo. It had been loaded into a standard trading canister for safe keeping, stored horizontally. The canister was currently open at the far end. The captain stepped around and ventured in. Inside was a curiously small pod. It was an unusual design, with a suggestion of more sophisticated technology, its exterior an untarnished bright white, without the scrapes and dents that typically marked freight containers. It was suspended at waist height, securely held in place in the midst of the canister. A man was standing next to it. He looked up as the captain approached.

‘Ah, Captain,’ the man said. ‘Have you finished shaking us around?’

The captain didn’t respond to the jibe. ‘Smooth as silk from here on out, Doctor. How’s our patient?’

‘Still dead, I imagine,’ the Doctor replied, brusquely. ‘We don’t have much time.’

The Doctor stroked his hand through his thick grey beard and then tapped out a series of patterns on the surface of the pod. White light flashed beneath his fingertips and then pulsed green. The pod hissed and opened, both men stepping back as the cover lifted and a thin white mist rolled out.

Inside, supine in more of the same viscous gel the captain had recently experienced, was the body of a young woman. She was entirely naked, save for a small black tab on her forehead; her skin pale and her eyes closed. She was unnaturally still, her arms at her side. The captain could see tiny needles puncturing the skin of her arms and legs. The Doctor gestured with his fingers and the gel seeped away.

The captain swept his eyes up and down. The Doctor cast a disapproving glance in his direction.

‘Don’t get any funny ideas.’

The needles retracted as the gel exposed them, neatly folding back into their housings around the edge of the pod’s interior. The Doctor continued to work and an intricate set of glass-like fibres emerged from the pod’s roof, growing organically and descending towards the woman’s body.

The fibres gently probed her chest, where the captain could see a small wound; a neat diagonal cut about two inches wide. As he watched, the glass-like fibres pulled the wound gently apart and ventured inside the woman’s body, throbbing and pulsing. As they did so, holofac images of internal organs appeared in the space above her body. The Doctor observed and guided, the images adjusted themselves. Light flickered bright on the images, accompanied by faint glows from within the woman’s body.

Brief minutes later the glass fibres emerged, retracting. As they did so, intense actinic light flickered over the wound, sealing it. The faintest of scars was all that remained. The Doctor touched the black tab on the woman’s forehead and inspected the configuration of lights that it displayed. Satisfied all was in order he gestured for the pod to close. Gel surged up around the woman and the pod locked itself in place again.

‘That’s it?’ The captain asked as they both stepped outside the canister. The Doctor bashed the locking mechanism and the hatch hissed closed.

‘Back from the dead in eighteen hours,’ he replied. ‘The physiological stuff is simple. Ensuring her memory and personality is intact takes longer. Though with this one, rumour has it, a new personality might not be a bad thing.’

‘I’m impressed.’

‘You should be. That pod cost more than you’ll earn in the next decade.’

‘She’s worth that?’

The Doctor tapped the side of the canister with his fingers.

‘To someone she is, yes.’

***

Six ships hung in the darkness between worlds, starlight flickering sporadically off pitted and radiation scarred hulls. A quick glance at the vessels would give a seasoned star traveller a sense of wariness. The ships were battered and well used, with all the signs of a hard life. Heat-tarnished weapons jutted out from the hulls in an ugly but functional way. They might have once been honest trading vessels, but no longer; their pilots turning to a less admirable vocation in pursuit of cold hard cash.

Clustered here in a dark system they played a waiting game, holding station at a waypoint on one of the many hyperspace routes. For passers-by these systems were a place to pause, check navigation, recharge their jump drive and then proceed onwards …

… For pirates it was the ideal place to stage an ambush.

The major routes were patrolled; squadrons of Vipers would roam the flight corridors on the busy tracks, keeping an eye out for illegal activity. But that was in the core systems; out here coverage was sparse. You brought along your own protection, prayed to whatever deity you thought took an interest and hoped you’d brought along a surfeit of guns.

‘Due in one minute.’

Aboard the
Talon,
Hassan heard the narrowband comm transmission from the lead ship. He could see it half a kilometre in front of him, a seriously modified Asp heavy fighter gently adjusting its position with brief flashes of thruster fire. Flanking it were four Sidewinders, basic but dependable ships. His own vessel, an old Eagle Mark 1, was bringing up the rear. He gripped the flight controls to stop his hands from shaking.

My first heist!

He checked his weapons load-out. He’d already done it countless times, but it kept him occupied during the interminable wait. Twin rapid fire pulse lasers, a rack of guided small missiles and a decent set of shield generators. It didn’t sound bad when recited like that, but despite his best efforts his ship was by far the least potent of the six vessels.

Trading between worlds was an established career path to fame and riches, but like any profession, it often required patience and planning. Lone wolf traders like Hassan often struggled, particularly early on. Joining a Guild was the ideal way to gain some protection but the Guilds could afford to be picky, there were always more candidates than places.

His brother had been right, the Guild didn’t take rookies. They’d turned him down. But after this, he’d be no rookie.

‘Fifteen seconds. Standby to attack.’

And my last …

He felt sweat drip from his forehead.

The captain felt his muscles tense. He was aware of his two Imperial escorts docking with
Caduceus
as it spooled up its hyperspace drive. The fighters couldn’t jump themselves, they had to be carried through. Hyperspace was one of those things that never became routine. The moment of sending hundreds of tons of ship and personnel through an infinitesimally small multi-dimensional compression, crossing light years of real space in a fraction of a second …

Best not to think about it too much.

‘Jump ready,’ the helm officer called out.

The captain nodded. ‘Execute.’

Stars leapt towards them, dust and nebulous gas streaming past the ship at speeds beyond imagination. It was all over in seconds, accompanied by a faint surge of deceleration. It would take the on-board systems a few moments to catch up and confirm their location. Meanwhile the drive would suck power as it spooled up again, ready to perform the next jump of the sequence.

‘Jump secure,’ the navigation officer said.

That was welcome news. Occasionally ships might suffer a failed jump and re-emerge … somewhere else. You never found out where; they never came back to tell.

‘Spool up for the next jump,’ the captain ordered. ‘Passive scans?’

‘Receiving,’ the navigation officer said, squinting at his instruments. The captain could see him rechecking something.

‘Problem?’

‘Faint heat signature, sir. Difficult to read, can’t localise it, nothing visual.’

The captain leant forward to examine the read-outs himself. There were plenty of mundane reasons for heat signatures out here. A powered vessel would typically be easy to spot, so it was probably just a rock, warm through the decay of radioactive elements and glowing softly in the infra-red, but it paid to be cautious. Dark systems were well named; far away from the glow of a sun, waypoints between the inhabited worlds, with maybe a frozen asteroid or dwarf planet to be used as a convenient marker, otherwise lost forever in the vastness of the cosmos.

The captain considered a quick active scan. That would positively identify the signature. It would also broadcast his exact position to anyone hereabouts who happened to be looking. He decided against it.

‘Could just be a sensor ghost,’ the navigation officer volunteered. He didn’t sound convinced.

The captain straightened. ‘Well, they say witchspace is haunted.’

The navigation officer grinned. ‘Witchspace? You sound like my grandmother. The ghosts of the early ships that went out here and didn’t come back again …’

‘Enough of that. Deploy the fighters and get them to run a sweep while we’re prepping. Eyes sharp.’

‘Aye sir.’

After terse instructions, the two small fighter craft undocked from the
Caduceus
and broke off in opposite directions, thrusting to the limits of the
Caduceus’
effective scanner range in order to extend the range of the sweep, searching for any trouble that might be lurking. The navigation officer could just see them faintly on the edge of his scanner, dull red heat signatures slowly circling the perimeter. Nothing else appeared to be in range.