Mutabilis (Oolite Saga Part 2) Read online

  Despite Hesperus’ aversion to actually spending hard earned credits, the Python wasn’t badly equipped; its shields were boosted, it sported a forward and rear military laser and hardened missiles. However, it lacked the toughest defences and was short on energy. It was also not the most agile of ships. Two Asps might have been a fight it could win, four was uneven odds.

  Three minutes.

  The third Asp succeeded in shooting down a missile. The second missile hit its target, the second Asp reeling out of control before its pilot stabilised it.

  Then the attack came. All four Asps managed to pick a vector which brought them simultaneously into a firing arc. The shields failed under the load. Lasers scorched the hull, coming dangerously close to the bridge itself. But the Python was a tough old ship. It weaved again, returning fire with the Asps.

  Hesperus’ fur was all fluffed up with alarm. Stepan’s eyes had narrowed to slits as he concentrated on flying.

  No serious damage, evasive moves! Get some power back into the shields!

  Stepan was a good pilot, but he didn’t have the tricks up his sleeve to counter this assault. He rolled the Python in pursuit of one of the Asps. He’d lost count of which one was which now, and any target would do. The Asp was hit, but turned and accelerated out of the way, outrunning the slower Python.

  Two minutes.

  The Asps regrouped and tried their combined attack again. Stepan loosed another missile, forcing them to abandon the formation and deal with it. One hopefully triggered its ECM to no avail. Stepan fired the military laser, watching with satisfaction as the shields on one Asp failed and the laser bit into the hull. The Asp limped away, trailing plasma.

  “Take that, and that! Good Stepan!” Hesperus called, punching the air with his paws. “Got the cops on the scanner, hang on! Vipers inbound! Goat soap for anyone left alive at the end!”

  Hesperus, like most felines, was particular about his food and so had also hired a cook, an actual chef from Ordima. He was a green bony bird called Gasazck. Despite this, most meals seemed to consist of variations on goat soup. Gasazck also had some other curious habits, mostly concerned with his wardrobe, that the rest of the crew had decided not to inquire into too closely.

  A jolt and shock ran through the Python. The other three Asps had arranged themselves behind them. The rear shields failed.

  Warning! ECM System Damaged!

  “Cat pee!” Hesperus yelled. “D’vlin, get your exoskeletal hide down below!”

  D’vlin scuttled towards the lower deck access point. “Me fix!”

  The insectoid jumped through the hole in the floor. Moments later there came the sound of a muffled series of thumps punctuated by yelps of pain and surprise.

  “How can he miss his footing with six feet?” Hesperus despaired.

  One minute.

  Stepan could see two purple dots approaching on the scanner.

  Only two Vipers?

  “Pirates! Stand down or be destroyed!” came the call on the wideband.

  To Hesperus and Stepan’s surprise the four Asps suddenly broke off their attack, streaking away from the stricken Python.

  “Are we going to make it?” Hesperus breathed, trying to smooth down his fur.

  They watched the astrogation console as the Asps withdrew, and then saw them swing around and drive straight at the incoming Vipers, the bright glare of injector powered engines flaring against the stars.

  “They’re going to attack!” Hesperus yelled. “Scratch! They’re trying to divide and conquer. Get in there!”

  Stepan pushed the Python to full speed, but the big ship had no answer to the Asps’ injected engines. Hesperus and Stepan watched as the hunters suddenly became the hunted. The Vipers seemed to lack the agility, pace and firepower they were renowned for.

  Probably cheap servicing, lack of spare parts, and bad maintenance! You’d never find me cutting corners like that! Well… not every day.

  The Python joined the fight again as one of the Vipers succumbed, disintegrating in a volley of fire.

  “Take that, dog-breath!” Stepan yelled, as the Python barrelled through. One of the Asps, the one that had been damaged earlier, took the full brunt of the Python’s firepower and exploded.

  “Yes!”

  The Python’s shields had recovered somewhat in the interlude, but it was still down on power.

  D’vlin clattered back from below deck, his shiny thorax plate sporting a definite dent.

  “ECM back, how do?”

  “Still not good. Local police can’t fly for toffee.”

  “Bad, bad!” D’vlin responded. He didn’t understand adjectives at all, and tended to repeat words for emphasis.

  The Python shuddered under another assault. The shields fading back towards failure.

  Even with help we’re still in trouble…

  Another blip appeared on the scanner, a ship torus-driving into range and becoming mass-locked by their presence. The scanner confirmed it wasn’t a police ship. It was another independent trader, pirate or scavenger most likely. It was something of a reasonable size, another Python, or maybe a Cobra. It was too far away to tell.

  No damn use to us either way!

  Hesperus stared as the second police Viper disintegrated; an Asp loomed through the expanding cloud of gas.

  “Now for unfinished business… no mercy lads!” came the, now furious sounding, imperious voice once more. The forward shields flickered and collapsed under the impact of the lead Asp’s fire power.

  “Generator overload!” D’vlin shouted as a panel blew out above his shiny carapace, showering him in sparks. “Hurt, hurt!”

  A roar of outrage came across the intercom from below decks; it was Rus, the lizard.

  Hesperus looked across at Stepan. “What did he say?”

  “ Something about stringing you up, probably… ” Stepan said, listening to the lizard’s peculiar mode of communication. “He says the engines are failing and he cannae get any more power… ”

  “Engineers!” Hesperus switched the commlink to wideband. “Mayday, Mayday! Please assist! We’re being attacked by marauders; we would really appreciate quite a lot of extremely well armed help at this stage…”

  The Python lurched as its drive began to fail catastrophically. Chewi-bar wrappers floated around the cockpit. D’vlin’s suckered feet allowed him to remain fixed as the artificial gravity went haywire. By contrast, the two felines ably demonstrated that cats do not always land on their paws.

  Hesperus sprang back to his feet and stared in horror at the commlink receiver in his hand. The cable was dangling out of the end, snapped. The rest of it stuck innocently out of the astrogation console, sparking indolently.

  “Oh, rodents…” he muttered.

  “Randomius factoria, I commend my soul to your safe keeping, no more weeping, days of sleeping, food for the eating…” Stepan began to yowl out a feline prayer.

  On the vision screen they could see the three remaining Asps regrouping, lining themselves up for a devastating final attack. Hesperus felt his heart beating wildly, felt the blooding coursing through his veins, was intimately conscious of his fur rippling and fizzing.

  I can’t die with my fur all over the place! I’ll never live it down!

  Dimly he was aware of the imperious voice again. It was saying something out of context.

  “…just back off! This is no business of yours! They’re owned… Yeah? Well, kiss your ugly ass goodbye, bitch! At her, lads!”

  A light flickered around the lead Asp.

  The laser about to fire? A missile launch?

  The Asp appeared to hesitate for a moment, altering its stance. Then suddenly it was spinning out of control, a blast of coruscating light framing it from behind in silhouette. Then it disintegrated, showering the two escorting Asps with debris and metallic particles. The Python rocked from the force of the explosion.

  “What the hell…”

  Behind the shattered remains of the Asp, another ship
was rapidly approaching; a wide low and classic ship design, instantly familiar to the Python crew.

  “Cobra mark three!” D’vlin twittered, wriggling in excitement, waving four of his legs around.

  “No, it’s a Cobra Courier,” Stepan argued back. “Look at the flux panels…”

  “I don’t give a flying fish what it is, it’s helping us out! Get back to the guns!” Hesperus yelled out, waving his paws around theatrically, striking what he thought was a dynamic Captain-like pose. “Damn the missiles! Full speed ahead!”

  The Python swung slowly around, firing once more, as the two remaining Asps barrel rolled in opposite directions away from the demise of their leader, sweeping out and coming in behind the Cobra Courier.

  The new ship turned through ninety degrees and then cut its engines abruptly.

  “What in the name of…”

  The Cobra Courier rolled around on its central axis, pitching upwards and sideways in a strange, alt-azimuth fashion. The Asps, unprepared for a stationary ship directly in front of them, both turned aside in the same direction without firing a shot.

  How did the ship turn that fast? It must have been customised somewhere expensive!

  The Cobra’s engines flared brightly as it dropped into pursuit behind them. The Python crew got a brief glimpse of customised near ultra-violet running lights on the base of the Cobra Courier illuminating a hull plate bearing the legend Eclipse II.

  “Wow! Look!” D’vlin shouted, thumping three of his legs down on the console as the Cobra Courier started firing on the Asps. The bright beam of a military laser flashed out, striking one of the Asps continuously. The Asp ducked and weaved, but the laser tracked with an almost fanatical accuracy. Suddenly the Asp was no more. Unlike the Viper pilots, the Cobra Courier pilot could fly.

  The second Asp triggered its fuel injectors, streaking away into the void at high speed, but it was to no avail. The Cobra Courier’s laser tracked it with merciless accuracy, pummelling it into submission. It exploded, despite being tens of kilometres away.

  “You see? Extreme range! Good, good!” D’vlin clicked.

  The Cobra Courier slowed, paused and then heeled over and headed back towards them. The pirate freighter had disappeared from the scanner in the confusion and was nowhere to be seen.

  “You don’t think…” Stepan said, watching the Cobra Courier approaching.

  Hesperus held his breath. Was the Cobra Courier just the worst of two evils, another pirate intending to claim their cargo? There was no way they could take on a ship like that on equal terms under normal conditions, let alone with the damage they’d suffered. The smell of burnt circuitry wafted through the bridge.

  The comm link buzzed, and a female voice crackled across the speakers. It was curiously subdued and quite difficult to hear. “This is the commander of the Eclipse… ”

  “Here comes… ” D’vlin whispered.

  “… you’re all clear, now let’s go home.”

  The three of them exhaled simultaneously: “Thank God.”

  Hesperus grabbed the commlink, pressed the button and said grandly. “This is Captain Hesperus of the …”

  Stepan pointed at the severed cable. “Uh, Cap…”

  “By Dogs!” Hesperus mewed. “Quick, stand down the missiles and the lasers, flash the hull lights! Wave out the window! Hold up a sign! Do something! Move!”

  Hesperus, D’vlin and Stepan managed to limp their damaged Python into system space and towards the welcoming sight of the nearest Coriolis station, escorted by the enigmatic Cobra Courier. There had been no further communication from the other commander, but she had stayed with them all the way into system space. Hesperus wasn’t sure whether to be grateful for the help, or annoyed at being babysat. The good news was that even with the damage they had sustained they would make enough profit to get them onto a far firmer financial footing.

  It had been too much of a near thing though. None of them had said a word to each other on the inbound flight. Hesperus had retired to his cot for a bath, snooze and preen; he liked to keep his fur in good condition.

  Stepan sat back as the auto-dock controllers took hold of the Python and guided it into a vacant berth, matching the roll rate of the Python to the gentle tumble of the space station, for once managing not to scrape any of the remaining paint from the hull. The Cobra Courier was behind them, next in line for docking clearance.

  A few moments later a soft thump and a queer moment of nausea followed as the artificial gravity generation of the Python gave way to the larger field generated by the station.

  “Docking complete,” the on-board computer announced.

  Stepan started the arrangements for repairs and unloading the cargo with the auto-mech units. Then the three crew members disembarked and headed towards the airlock doors at the outer edge of their landing slot.

  The view was quite disorienting. They appeared, to all intents and purposes, to be standing inside a hollow cylinder. The ‘ground’ curved up sharply to their right and left in a huge arc, meeting above them. Dotted all around were other landing pods, with a variety of ships secured against them. From their vantage point, some of the ships appeared to be hanging off the walls, and there was a large Anaconda moored directly ‘above’ them. They could see a group of passengers milling about it, apparently standing upside down and suspended from the roof.

  If you were born to space you never had any problems with things like this. Folks born planet-side tended to either look down, or chuck up.

  Another ship was just entering the central corridor of the station from the entry portal. From here, all directions were ‘down’. It was the Cobra Courier.

  It was obviously a recently built ship: the hull had still not completely lost the polished sheen of brand new duralium, though it had evidently seen some action. The hull had some untreated laser burn scars in places, and there was an indication of at least one or two hull panels having been refitted.

  It was a well equipped ship. Hesperus looked with envy at the the forward military laser, the twin power spikes of shield boosters, rare military enhancements, ECM transmitters and the squat dome of an energy bomb housing. Three hard points were boasting a Navy grade hardened missile, the final one had something spherical he didn’t recognise.

  One of those fancy new Q-Bombs maybe? Miaow!

  He was curious to meet the commander. It required a rich owner to run such a ship. The Cobra Courier was not a cheap vessel, retailing at over fifty percent more than the basic Mk3 Cobra on which it was loosely based. This one wasn’t far from being brand new. The voice they had heard on the narrowband was to the point, no-nonsense and typically trader tough. Hesperus knew how hard it was to make a living in space with a crew. It was even harder as a ‘lone-wolf’ trader. He imagined the commander was a hard nosed old bird of the galaxy; a quick witted, rough and raw space bitch.

  I hope she’s not a canine, that would really ruin my day…

  The Cobra Courier rolled slowly around and began to descend on the landing pad adjacent to theirs. The ship settled on its undercarriage and the navigation lights winked out, the hum of the engines fading away. There was a characteristic half visible flicker of light as the shields unfolded from around the ship and dissipated.

  “Come on,” Hesperus purred, running a paw over his fur. “Let’s meet our saviour. We ought to buy her a drink or something. We’d be dead otherwise.”

  “That’s some ship,” Stepan commented, licking his paws, trying to clear away the more obvious signs of his ‘Chewi-Bar’ fixation.

  “Wow, wow, wow!” D’vlin agreed.

  All three walked over to the next pad as the docking port doors swung downwards and the internal gantry swung down.

  A young human woman walked out, dressed in rather second-hand looking blue overalls. She was quite short, at a shade over five foot tall, her hair cut simply into two straight brown folds on either side of her head. Thin, but not skeletal, she was probably quite pretty to another human.
She looked like a decent meal to Hesperus, he was quite partial to simian based delicacies. Cooked humans were illegal, given the overwhelming human prejudice in the GalCop sphere of influence, but not impossible to come by.

  Also obvious was the oversized pistol secured by her side.

  Damn! That looks better than mine! She must be rich! Will she marry me? No bad idea, scratch that…

  Hesperus’ immediate thought was that she was a deckhand, a crew member. Cobras sometimes ran with two crew, even though most were piloted by a single occupant. She had to be the ship’s grease monkey, doubtless the Captain was waiting for the all clear.

  The woman looked over at them, and then confidently walked across, head held high. Hesperus stared in surprise as the Cobra Courier’s hatchway closed up behind her.

  This is the commander? She’s young even for a human! Where did she learn to fly like that?

  “You’re the Captain, I presume?” the young woman said, her voice sounding sharp, intimidating, almost annoyed.

  It was the eyes that did it, Hesperus decided as they exchanged a look. The woman looked like a breath of wind might blow her away. But the eyes, a deep brown, were sharp, hard and old beyond their years. They gave the indication of a firm will lurking just below the waif like exterior. This was not someone to be crossed. She was like an iron fist in a velvet glove. Whoever this woman was, she was on a mission. Hesperus was immediately on his guard, sensing trouble.

  Let’s wind this up as fast as we can and get out of here…

  He purred, preening himself. “Captain Hesperus. This is the Dubious Profit and this is my crew… ”

  The woman looked over the battered Python, her eyes resting briefly on some glowing green sludge that was dripping from one of the engine cooling manifolds.

  “Rebecca. Rebecca Weston,” she said distractedly, trying to look around Hesperus for a closer view of the growing puddle of goo on the landing pad. “What is that stuff… ?”

  “ … Don’t be alarmed!” Hesperus said, sidling across to block her view again. “We’re experimenting with some new drive modifications, top spec, latest tech… very secret! My crew would like to express their appreciation… ”