In time of trouble, forget common sense, forget the force. Do what you goddam feel like. If it don't work, one thing's for sure. You ain't going to be around to regret it.'
Seated at the astrogation console of the Cobra, Alex watched Rafe's home on the forward screen. It was a much modified, and quite bizarre-looking, Anaconda cruiser, its cargo bay dented, its fuel-scoop ripped open, its hull lights blinking not so much with meaning as with disrepair.
Rafe had not invited him aboard. At 0.1 Iight years from Tionisla he was safe from detection, and here he stayed in the cold and silence of interstellar space, collecting ships, fuel, food and weapons. Three Mambas — small fighters — were tethered to the service bay on the Anaconda's hull, robots crawling all over them as they patched-up the shot up vessels. Unlike humans, robots could work without arc-lights.
When the graveyard ship had arrived at Rafe Zetter's private system, Rafe's holoFac had appeared in the cabin.
'It takes a lot of effort and a lot of wile to get supplies for the sort of mission you're about to go on. I'll fuel your ship enough to get you to Isinor. But from then on you're on your own. You're going to need missiles, operational lasers, an energy bomb, a fuel scoop… a whole bunch of other things.'
'An iron ass,' Alex muttered with a smile.
'That's right. And I don't want to hear from you again until you've scalped that Cobra that killed Jason.'
'Why are you doing this for me?'
'I'm doing it for Jason,' Rafe said. 'And for others besides. And listen Alex. Don't you go worrying about Raxxla. Not yet. That comes in time…'
'But why did he say it?'
'To let me know he trusted you. Your father reckoned you have it in you to become one of the Elite. That's good enough for me.'
Alex's head span. What was this old man saying now? Not just that Jason Ryder had been an йlite combateer, but that he'd seen the same potential in his son?
In SimCombat Alex had often built up a success and survival score that had awarded him the simulator's highest accolade: a victory roll over the mock-up of the old Earth city of London. But he had never thought that in real life he would ever achieve a combat status higher than 'dangerous'.
To be йlite…
A dizzying prospect. And a nerve-racking one, with all that it implied of not just fighting off free-booters, but of spending time as a bounty hunter, deliberately hyperspacing into dangerous planetary systems and waiting for pirates to come to you; looking for trouble, in other words, boosting your combat status to the maximum by advertising yourself to killers, and outgunning them.
'One thing's for sure,' Rafe went on drily. 'Unless you get there, unless you become йlite, you'll never get to Raxxla. And you'll never know exactly what your father was searching for.'
'I don't understand.'
'Were you aware of his involvement in The Dark Wheel?'
Shock after shock! The Dark Wheel was a semi-legendary space unit, star-riders who made it their business to seek the truth behind the plethora of myths and romantic stories that filtered back from all corners of the Universe: fabulous cities, parallel worlds, time travellers, even planets that appeared to be the old 'heaven' of Earth legend. The Dark Wheel was as mysterious and as mythical to the traders of the Galaxy as King Arthur might have been to the first spacemen.
'It's not possible,' Alex breathed. 'He would have told us…'
'The hell he would,' Rafe said, staring at the younger man from the shimmering holoFac on the bridge. 'The ship that killed Jason was no pirate. He was killed because he'd found something. Something that certain parties were deeply unhappy that he'd found.'
'What exactly?'
Rafe laughed. 'Listen to the boy! Look at me, Alex. Do I look whole? I do?
Well I ain't. One leg, some of my liver, a few brain cells — all that's left of the real me. The rest is just bionic. Trying to do what your father did, I got shot to hell'n' back. I was йlite once. Now it takes me ten seconds to decide to spit. He didn't tell me because I'm not part of it anymore. Not to that degree. But I watch and I listen, and I do what I'm told. And as sure as there's gold-flake on the skin of a Geretean, Jason Ryder told me to get you ready to follow in his footsteps.'
Coming so soon after his father's death, with the memory of Jason's murder so vivid in his mind, it was almost too much for Alex. He didn't know whether to glow with pride, or shake with apprehension. He slowly sat down at the astrogation console and played his fingers over the controls of the Cobra.
After a while he smiled, and shrugged away the confusion and the sadness he was feeling.
'Right. If that's what my father wanted, then I shan't disappoint him…'
Out of Witch-Space: the dizziness, the slight shudder, the brief disorientation. Ahead of them, the distant, red-blue disc of the planet Xezaor was only slightly brighter than the gleaming field of stars around.
The planet's sun was dim and very close by. It glowed red. A dying star, as the world ahead of them was a dying world, a cooling world, a world whose wealth and industrial development could not hold back the process of Galactic ageing. Xezaor was a world where luxuries and warmth meant everything, now, and Shanaskilk fur, with the multiple heads still intact, would fetch a high price.
Routine. A routine trade run. Elyssia dozed, Alex punched co-ordinates into the auto-pilot and prepared to pass the time of the long run-in to the world.
Routine, a routine which Alex was by now well used to.
Out of Witch-Space and then the slow approach until the Coriolis station came on target-Nothing to do…
Nothing to see…
The Cobra rocked and a sound like the screech of metal being bent apart echoed through the bridge!
'Company!' Alex said loudly, and Elyssia blinked awake. She must have assessed the situation in an instant. She remained where she was. Alex was at the console and there were only seconds available for thought.
Alex had been taken by surprise, not because he hadn't been paying attention, but because the attack ships had been so close to the egress point from hyperspace. With their tiny hulls between him and the glowing sun, they had not been visible for an instant, and they had been performing a 'tumbling' routine, mimicking slow-moving asteroids.
Alex had half noticed them and half ignored them. They had got the first shot in, then overflown the Cobra.
Now, they grouped behind as Alex punched up maximum speed, and scanned space for them.
'Here they come…'
The shields screamed as laser fire played off them. Beam lasers! Those ships were well equipped. But then, so, now was the Nemesis, the dramatic name that he and Elyssia had given to their ship. Alex checked the rear monitor and lined up the firing window. He stabbed out two bursts of fire from the newly installed aft-laser. The pirate ships veered apart, one of them struck.
As he had them on the screen, he targeted a missile. A missile from one of the attacking craft began to weave towards them, and his screen flashed with warning. Alex operated the Nemesis's ECM, and after an agonisingly long few seconds the incoming missile vanished in a burst of heat and light. The hull screeched and Alex dived. He noticed that the shields had begun to put a drain on the first energy unit.
Elyssia sat calm and quiet while Alex handled the situation. Ahead of them, the planet edged closer, rising and falling and spinning in a dizzying way as Alex fought for a better combat position.
Then, instinct took over. He looped the Cobra a full 180 degrees and raced head-on at the pirate vessel that had been behind him. Now he could see that it was a Fer-de-lance, a sleek, fast ship that was probably loaded down with sophisticated navigational and defence equipment that had been installed by the original owner. Or maybe not… such equipment took cash to maintain, and this ship had seen battle service aplenty.
As pirate and Alex closed, Alex took a chance. They had only four missiles and one was targetted. He punched for fire and the Cobra jolted as the deadly sting shot across space.
It reached its target and the Fer-de-lance literally disappeared.
Had it hyperspaced? No.
When Alex activated the rear screen, he saw the spreading ash cloud, a silvery glimmer against the stars…
'Good shooting!' Elyssia said enthusiastically.
Through the cloud of metal and ash came the other ship.