Status Quo Read online

'We’re in deep frag!' Lance said, hitting the comlink. 'Red, he’s packing military! I repeat, military!'

  'I saw it. Stand by.'

  'We’ve got to help them!' Rebecca said, killing the autopilot and bringing the old Boa about on an intercept course. The Boa’s beam laser was pretty powerful; despite the low manoeuvrability they might get a hit or two in. It might make the difference.

  Red, Jante and Coran had manoeuvred in behind the attacking ship and were hitting it repeatedly. Red’s Krait had a high powered beam laser too, but it seemed to be no match for the attacker’s shields. The pulse lasers on the other two ships were virtually inconsequential. The newcomer accelerated to high speed, outrunning and leaving the fighters behind, then it turned and came back on the attack, targeting the other Sidewinder which Jante was flying.

  Jante saw the attack coming and skilfully flipped her ship neatly out of the way. The newcomer tried to turn, but was behind the curve, unable to match the rate of turn. It slipped past at close range. There was a burst of light.

  'Prak! Missile!' Lance cried, stabbing the ECM button.

  The ECM worked by sending out a halo of charged particles, they triggered an auto-detonation in standard missiles. They were fast, but not instantaneous. The expanding invisible cloud from Eclipse took a crucial two seconds to reach out to the range of the fighters.

  Jante’s fighter was hit by the missile one-point-four seconds after it launched.

  Lance stared at the expanding cloud of gas that was all that remained of his sister, the ringing tones of the ECM system mocking him. Too late.

  Jante… !

  'What the prak is going on!' Reet made his entrance from the rear cabin as Eclipse rocked from the second explosion.

  'We’re under attack!' Rebecca screamed at him. 'We’ve lost Jenner and Jante!'

  'Lost?'

  'They’re gone. Killed. Dad, this is serious.' Rebecca had never felt out of control like this before, it was like a dream, a game, not real. It couldn’t be happening.

  'Hyperspace status?' Reet demanded, snapping her attention back.

  'No chance. We don’t have enough to make a jump!' Lance replied, his voice trembling.

  Her father looked up at the screen and Rebecca saw his jaw go slack, 'Goids!'

  He's seen one of these before. What is it? What does he know?

  'What is it?' Rebecca demanded. 'Do you know what type of ship that is?'

  'You don’t want to know.'

  'Tell us.' Lance cut across Reet’s hedging.

  'I saw one of these three years ago, out on the frontier. It was a genuine first encounter, and almost my last.'

  'The frontier? You mean the Empire?'

  'It’s an Imperial military ship, it’s called the Imperial Courier. It’s the most deadly ship ever built.'

  'What do we do?'

  'Send out a distress call, wideband. The police aren’t far away: they’ll get this stard for us.'

  It really troubled Reet to call for help; he regarded it as the cry of the inadequate. This was something else though.

  Call for help? Us?

  Rebecca hit the comlink sequence for wideband, 'S.O.S. To any vessel in range! We’re being attacked by pirates, please assist!'

  To her surprise and fear, there was no immediate acknowledgement from the police.

  What is going on? Where are the cops?

  The Courier was close now: it had accelerated past the two remaining fighters and loosed a burst of laser fire directly at them. Rebecca ducked instinctively as the fire flared across the shields. She threw the lumbering Boa into a dive, trying to roll away, watching in horror as the forward shield collapsed almost immediately, severely draining the energy banks. Sparks flew from an overloaded console above the main screen.

  'Prak!' her father spat. 'The ECM is out!'

  'We’re taking hits!' Rebecca called out, completing the turn. The Courier was ahead. She lined up the targeting crosshairs, firing the Boa’s beam laser in return, striking four solid hits on the Courier without apparent effect before it out turned them once again.

  Red’s Krait was behind the Courier too. Rebecca saw him hit the ship continuously with his beam laser until it overheated and cut out. Then, both his missiles launched simultaneously at close range, hoping to copy the devious trick the Courier had pulled on Jante.

  The Courier pilot was too smart, anticipating the move, its ECM already activated as Red’s missiles launched. The Courier was framed by the twin blasts, but emerged unharmed. Rebecca was stunned to see the Courier’s shields still seemed to be completely intact.

  We’re losing! We’re being cut to scrap! This guy is too good… an Elite Combateer maybe? But why is he attacking us? We’re all going to die here!

  The Courier turned, its rear gun mounting tracking the Coran’s Mk1 Cobra. Fierce energy fire burst out. The Mk1 Cobra was sent tumbling.

  There was a whisper on the wideband, 'My God, it’s full of s—'

  The old Cobra exploded, pieces of hull and equipment dispersing into the darkness. Further bursts caught Red’s Krait. Rebecca saw the Krait’s shields collapse and a burst of fire drive straight into the hull near the plasma conduits. A plume of leaking plasma splurged out at high pressure, leaving a glow yellow trail behind the stricken Krait.

  Red! No, please, not Red!

  Her father grabbed the comlink, 'Red, get the hell out of here. There’s nothing more you can do.'

  'No fragging way. I’m going to ram the goidson stard.'

  'You’ll be killed!' Rebecca shouted, hysterically.

  Don't do this. You can't do this!

  'Next hit’ll take me out anyway sis, the laser’s burnt out and I’m leaking plasma. Life support’s offline. Nothing else left to do.'

  'There must be something… '

  The Krait angled up, twisting away from the Courier. Red’s voice came over the wideband.

  'Mine is not to wonder why… '

  'Red!'

  The Krait turned, spun and angled itself towards the Courier. Rebecca could see that the Krait was badly damaged, its drive exhausts flickering, barely sustaining forward thrust.

  'Red…no! Please no. This can’t be happening… Dad, stop him!'

  'Mine is but to do…'

  The Courier seemed unaware of the approaching Krait. Red was almost up to full speed. It was seconds from impact.

  '… and – die!' Red’s final words echoed out of the comlink as the Krait barrelled in at point-blank range.

  The Courier suddenly rolled along its central axis. Laser fire spat from its side, washing over the Krait. It disintegrated, metallic fragments flying off in all directions. Military lasers front and rear, and on both flanks. Unreal.

  'REEEEED!' Rebecca screamed, her fists clenched and slammed down on the console in pure frustration at not being in out there in one of the fighters, glaring at their attacker, 'You 'stard! You utter 'stard!'

  'Fire the missiles!'

  Lance launched the missiles in sequence, one after another. They spun around, closing on the Courier, which made no effort to avoid them.

  Maybe it was damaged, maybe we might survive this…

  The characteristic ringing tones of an ECM system buzzed through the bridge. All four missiles exploded harmlessly The Courier came on.

  'Get us the frag out of here!' her father shouted.

  'We’re already at full throttle.' Lance replied, his voice oddly calm in the midst of all the carnage.

  'Where are the cops?' Rebecca cried desperately, 'They should be here by now! Why aren’t they here?'

  'They aren’t coming,' Lance said, his voice bitter. It made no sense: the police were duty bound to help any ship under fire, particularly traders, 'They must have been killed too.'

  All-out war with the Empire? There’d been nothing on wideband, and why attack civilians? They watched the Courier turn behind them. It was in range once more.

  Please God, no. I don't want to die!

  The Courier was tracki
ng them now, looming larger in the rear display. Laser fire sprayed out again. There was a lurch and the sickening sound of laser fire directly hitting the hull, puncturing, scything into vital components. The stricken Boa was leaking plasma, five energy units drained in mere seconds. The drives were failing; one of the generators had blown; the shields were down. Their ship – their life, their home – was dying around them. A console exploded, and the main viewer crackled and went out.

  'Eject the cargo!' Her father shouted.

  'But that’s our whole credit balance…'

  'Do it, now! There’s a chance he might take that and let us go.'

  Lance worked the controls and they saw their precious cargo being ejected out into space on the rear view, the huge one tun canisters tumbling haphazardly behind them.

  The Courier ignored the canisters completely, driving onwards at full speed, smashing through them with total indifference, canisters exploding into atoms as they were crushed against its shields. It was seconds from hitting them again. The canisters had bought them a few moments, nothing more.

  Merciless! Why? What did we do to him? What can this be about?

  'What does he want?' Rebecca cried, fighting back tears, 'We’re not fugitives, there’s no bounty on us…'

  'Get in one of the escape pods now! Move!' her father shouted. 'We’ll follow!'

  'No Dad! Let me stay and fight!'

  'Rebecca, that’s no pirate! And you can see as well as me we’re beaten. I want you safe first. We’ll be right behind you!'

  He picked her up bodily and threw her into the escape pod, slammed the hatch down and hitting buttons on the adjacent keypad before she could scramble back across the pod.

  'No! Dad! Let me out!' she screamed, clambering up and battering the implacable hatchway.

  There was a terrific lurch and Rebecca found herself thrown hard and then pinned against the wall of the Pod. The Boa was tumbling drunkenly; the internal grav had failed. Suddenly she was weightless, her stomach lurched and she felt nauseous, disoriented, unable to tell up from down. She could see the eject timer counting down rapidly. If she wasn’t strapped down…

  She managed to use the netting hung around the walls of the pod to pull herself down towards the reclining couch and buckle herself in just as the escape pod was jettisoned at high speed from the rear of the ship. She’d never been ejected in a pod before and the acceleration was fierce and terrifying. She caught a brief glimpse of the hull of Eclipse overhead before the pod spun round and angled itself towards the planet, its miniature engines roaring at full power.

  She craned her neck around to see what was going on. She could see the Courier, the stricken Boa, cargo canisters tumbling around them both. The Boa seemed to be completely out of control. Reet and Lance would be being thrown around the bridge by the inertia. The Courier appeared to have overheated its forward laser. She watched, terrified, as it turned aside and lined up to trigger its flank lasers again.

  'Launch the escape pods for Prak’s sake!' she yelled, 'Get out, get the frak out! What are you waiting for!'

  The Boa exploded, showering the Courier in metal fragments which flared against its shields. The escape pod bucked and rang with the force of the explosion. Rebecca was knocked unconscious by the shock and never saw the Courier bearing down on her escape pod.

  Jim heard the distress call over the wide band, a woman's voice, high with fear. The Boa was way off his scanner, but not that far away.

  'S.O.S. To any vessel in range! We’re being attacked by pirates, please assist!'

  Bloody pirates! In a corporate system too, what was the universe coming to? Maybe Galcop was losing the plot after all.

  He looked at the aft view and saw a flash of light against the darkness, the remote signature of the destruction of a ship. He sighed, he couldn’t in all conscience ignore them. He had to try and help, despite the risk. The SuperCobra was a strong vessel; it should be all right.

  He turned the ship around and triggered the hyperspeed drive, almost immediately arriving back in the vicinity of the Boa.

  To his surprise, a lone ship was attacking the Boa. Two of the escort fighters he had seen earlier were gone, and as he approached another one went down, leaving a solitary Krait battling away.

  He locked the ident computer onto the attacking vessel, hardly able to believe his eyes.

  'That can’t be a …'

  It was.

  Rumour had it that Seldar Shipyards in the Tionisla system were trying to reverse engineer a Imperial Courier hull with Galcop technology after suspiciously receiving one ‘off the back of a Towmaster’ three years ago. It was also rumoured they were, by now, close to releasing it. Despite the fuss and anticipation, it would be a pale imitation of the real vessel.

  But this one was indeed the real thing.

  Hardly ever seen in Galcop space, the profile of a genuine Imperial Courier was confirmed by his access into the Galcop security archive. The premier Imperial navy fighting vessel. Jim remembered when he worked at Cowell and MgRath when the spy shots of the ship first appeared. It was a remarkable craft, getting grudging, but deep, respect from the Faulcon de Lacy design teams. Nobody knew how the empire techs had got the twin hull design to work, or exactly what the engine configuration was. The lateral stresses had doomed all Galcop and Federation attempts to an early scrapyard. Not only had the Empire cracked that, they had produced a superb fighting ship, with style as well as substance. It looked stunning.

  But what was it doing here? An Imperial pirate? And where were the police? Some thing was very wrong.

  The Courier was obviously well equipped and superbly piloted. It appeared to have military lasers on all four mountings, a hugely costly adaptation even for a well-heeled fighting ship. Its shields appeared to be able to shrug off the combined effects of the two beam lasers on the Krait and Boa and the feeble pulse laser of the Mk1 Cobra and Sidewinders without any difficulty whatsoever. That implied the Imperial equivalent of military enhanced shielding, boosters and maybe even a naval energy unit. Serious stuff. Jim wondered how that kind of tech had gotten into the hands of what he assumed was a rich and powerful pirate.

  The remaining battle was swift and one sided. By the time he was pulling into laser range it was pretty much over. The Krait attempted a brave but futile suicide run. The Courier turned on the Boa, mercilessly pounding at the hull until it was leaking plasma from multiple rents.

  Jim watched as the Boa dumped its cargo. The pirate had what he wanted: would he finish them off or let them go? There was a pirate code of sorts, which many adhered to: a worthy adversary was let go if they fought well, once the cargo had been stolen of course.

  The Courier surged onwards.

  Well, perhaps not a code, more a set of guidelines really.

  Then he frowned, remembering the tech specs he’d seen on the original Courier’s design. The Imperial Courier didn’t have a fuel or cargo scoop. It wasn’t even an option due to the twin hulls and monocoque design. It didn’t need one, the Imperials used a complex type of military fuel rather than traditional hydrogen.

  Not a pirate then.

  As if to confirm this, the Courier ignored the cargo. It continued bearing down on the Boa, lining up for a finishing strike.

  Jim checked the bounty on the Boa.

  Offender status, 2.5 Credits.

  Nothing, basically; certainly not enough to warrant an attack of this fashion. The Courier had used a missile. That was over thirty credits worth burnt up in a flash, not to mention any battle damage suffered.

  Not a bounty hunter either.

  The Boa’s drives failed and it began to tumble out of control. Jim saw a single escape pod jettison from the rear end. Only one? The Boa usually needed a crew of at least four or five. The lone escape pod spun for a moment before stabilising and heading away towards Zaonce.

  The Courier obliterated the Boa with a blast from it’s starboard gun emplacement. Then it turned, heading directly after the lone escape pod.<
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  Jim couldn’t believe his eyes. No-one ever shot down or scooped escape pods, ever. It was one of the unwritten rules. You just didn’t, no arguments. You never knew when it might be you in a Pod. Blasting a Pod would give you fugitive status across a hundred-light-year range. You’d never eat again.

  Scooping was as bad. The poor occupant would be sucked into your cargo bay where the hold automata would ‘stabilise’ them, effectively turning the escape pod into a cryogenic freezer. When the occupant awoke they’d find themselves a slave on some remote outworld. Galcop was hot on the practice and since everyone had ident chips it had been pretty easy to spot a slave who’d been scooped. Unless the captor employed the increasingly common tactic of surgery, both to remove the chip and make the subject much more… compliant. Slavery remained illegal, of course.

  You didn’t blast or scoop Pods. You just didn’t. No one did.

  The Courier looked like it was going to. The escape pod was being overhauled fast. Definitely not a pirate, nor a bounty hunter.

  An assassin.

  Invisible, silent, anonymous, swift and deadly. No, not Deadly, probably Elite.

  Why would anybody pay to assassinate a down-at-heels trader with no bounty and a time-ravaged old freighter?

  Then he realised.

  Jim cursed and triggered the injectors, reacting instinctively rather than thinking. The SuperCobra surged ahead.

  The Agent showed no emotion as the Boa exploded in front of him. There was no victory cheer. It was part of the job, unfortunate but necessary. They were unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. A million-to-one chance.

  The Courier rocked slightly and the shields dipped as metal fragments from the doomed ship flashed against them, then space was clear.

  Except for the three faint exhaust plumes. An escape pod.

  The scanner had beeped. He saw the ident of the target SuperCobra. The fool pilot had responded to the distress call. The Agent realised had to be quick to take advantage of this fortuitous turn of events. He had to deal with the Pod immediately. If he engaged the SuperCobra first, he might lose track of the Pod.

  The orders were clear. No witnesses. He angled the Courier to pursue the Pod and kicked the engines up to full power. The characteristic roar of the twin RamJet drives rose to fever pitch. He’d be in range in five seconds. Once the Pod had been dealt with it would be time for the main event: the SuperCobra. Now that would be a proper challenge, one to relish. More firepower and shielding than the traders combined in a fighter package. A proper fight, if the pilot had any skill. Killing the traders had been like shooting fish in a barrel. Pathetic Galcop vessels.