Wanderer - Echoes of the Past Read online

  “Twenty seconds…”

  Dash thought about chasing Dozer up, then stopped himself. He knew his second-in-command would have everything in hand.

  “Fifteen…”

  Dash tensed, ready to move. The ship pulled another spine crunching move then smoothed out.

  “Go…” the pilot called out.

  Dash had already hit the release on his webbing and was swinging his way through the rear hatch into the main cabin. He was aware of Tassalt following almost immediately after. Much as Dash disliked the political officer, he had to admit that Tassalt knew how to handle himself in a combat situation.

  In the main cabin Dozer had all the troopers on their feet and ready to go. The ship lurched a final time then landed with a crunch that shook the deck. The rear door swung down and Dash’s troops charged out.

  The first few dropped into a crouch as soon as they cleared the ramp, laying down suppression fire. The assault ship must have passed through an atmospheric shield because air had come rushing in when the ramp was lowered, allowing Dash to hear the rolling thunder as his men opened fire.

  All the men were equipped with gunpowder based weapons, the only concession to their role was that the bullets carried a store of oxygen so they could be fired in a vacuum. While far more advanced weapons were available the Empire chose gunpowder based weapons for most of its troops on the grounds of reliability and cost.

  The rest of the troopers charged past, taking up defensive positions. Dash and Tassalt followed them. The moment they cleared the ramp Dash felt the assault boat lifting behind them, then racing away. Dozer ordered several troopers back to cover their now exposed rear. Dash raced over and dropped into cover beside Dozer.

  “Clean deployment sir,” Dozer reported. “Small arms fire from two locations ahead, both neutralised. Area secured.”

  “Good work,” Dash replied, consulting his tactical display. He switched to the general band. “Remember, we’re here to rescue any prisoners as well as taking out the pirates. Nothing has changed from the briefing. We’re aiming for the main docking bay. We need to neutralise any resistance and take control of their automated defences. Alpha, take point. Bravo and Charlie follow Alpha with me. Delta, Echo and Foxtrot — you’re with Corporal Sánchez.”

  Dozer flipped Dash an informal salute then led his three squads, each of five troopers, away in a different direction. The plan was to approach the docking bay from different directions.

  “You shouldn’t have let that sloppy salute go.”

  Dash gritted his teeth at Commandant Tassalt’s rebuke, and chose to ignore it.

  “I take it we will have the pleasure of your company?” Dash asked.

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “Wonderful.”

  The irony seemed to be lost on Tassalt. Dash decided it was for the best. Alpha squad were leading off already, Dash dropped into position with Beta squad. Now came the most dangerous part of the mission, rushing through the pirate stronghold trying to avoid being pinned down by superior enemy numbers. Dash grinned fiercely. This was what he lived for!

  Chapter Seven

  The next couple of days fell into a familiar pattern. Working together to refine the final plans for the new-look Wanderer. Finding and mining suitable asteroids for raw materials. Prioritising the work. Discussing issues or new ideas that only came to light as they progressed.

  Jess held onto his secrets for almost two days. Each time the others tried to pin him down he managed to divert the conversation or needed to deal with an urgent query from the ship. As they sat finishing a meal he knew they would press him again, and was keen to hold onto his secrets a little longer. Truth be told, he was enjoying stringing them along.

  “So Jess,” Elizabeth said. “Are you finally ready to let us in on the secret?”

  Jess shrugged and grinned. Mentally he prepared himself for their attempts to wheedle the information out of him.

  “For god’s sake Jess!” shouted Sal. “Stop being so childish! These changes could be life or death for us. Just tell us what you’re adding.”

  Jess’s mouth dropped open and he flushed with anger.

  “I’m not being childish! I just need to… I want to…”

  He stumbled to a halt. If he was honest the only reason to keep the changes secret was because he enjoyed doing so. He hadn’t thought of it that way though. Sal’s anger forced him to.

  It was an unpleasant realisation. He was intensely aware of being the youngest on the ship. Being captain, and being so closely linked to the Wanderer, went a long way to offsetting that but he wanted to show that he wasn’t just a kid. Now his behaviour had only reinforced that impression. To make matters worse he felt incredibly angry, and wanted to lash out at Sal — even though he knew it wasn’t her fault.

  “Whoa… let’s just calm it down a bit,” Elizabeth said firmly. “Sal, I understand your frustration, but you’re tired and stressed too. Take a few deep breaths.”

  Jess stared at Sal. She did look tired, far more tired than he had realised. She had bags under her eyes and her skin looked pale. For a moment she looked ready to lash out at Elizabeth, then she took a deep breath and nodded sharply.

  “Jess,” Elizabeth said calmly. “Sal put it a bit harshly, but she’s right. This isn’t the time to be playing games. Can you please tell us what changes you’ve made.”

  Jess fought the urge to say no. He’d wanted to present all the ideas in his own way, to impress the others. Instead he was being forced to reveal the details under far less than ideal circumstances.

  Ali put a hand on his arm, and met his eyes.

  “Please Jess, this is important,” she said.

  Looking into Ali’s eyes, and feeling the warmth of her hand on his arm, calmed Jess down. As the anger flowed out he was left grinning nervously, sheepishly.

  “Right… well… so…” He stopped, cleared his throat, then started again. “I was thinking about some of the sticky positions we’ve been in, literally in the case of the tar pit we encountered. I tried to think of ways we could deal with them if they occurred again. And I came up with a few ideas.

  The first is to increase the engines output, because the other ideas are going to lead to an increased power drain. Quite a chunk of the extra space I set aside is just for those.

  The next really important bit was the thrusters. When we were stuck near the tar pit, unable to jump, the ships chasing us were faster. We couldn’t get far enough away from the tar pit to jump before they could overwhelm us with firepower. I don’t want us to be in that situation again. I’ve greatly increased the thrusters. The Wanderer will really be able to move now. Then there’s a lot of structural reinforcement to allow for that.”

  “Doesn’t matter how many engines you add, there’s still plenty out there that will catch her,” Elizabeth said. “Even if you made the whole ship nothing but engines and thrusters that’d still be the case.”

  “I know. We won’t be able to outrun everything, but we should be able to outrun anything that we can’t outgun.”

  “Hmm… OK… yes, I can see that. If you’ve added enough speed.”

  “I have.”

  “Anything else you’ve changed?”

  “I’ve increased the internal defences a lot. When we first picked up the robots we were nearly overwhelmed. Now the ship can generate much stronger shields internally, and within our section of the ship the doors have been reinforced too. There are some defensive weapons at key points as well.”

  “Who controls those?” Ali asked, clearly concerned.

  “We do — you, Sal and I. We control them through our implants. The shields and doors can be controlled by the Wanderer as well as us, but not the weapons.”

  “Good. Any more additions we need to know about.”

  “I’ve tweaked the ship's shields a bit, just making them a bit more efficient, and added some more weapons but neither of those are significant changes. Then there’s the best bit.”

  Elizab
eth chuckled. “All right Jess, I’ll bite. What is it?”

  Jess smiled. They should still be impressed with this.

  “I’ve had the Wanderer make some adjustments to the jump engines. We can run them in a special mode now which will disrupt jump space around us. It will stop any ships dropping out too close to us, and could prevent nearby ships from entering jump space. Or it might cause them to be destroyed if they tried to fly through the affected area.

  I got the idea from the tar pits. It doesn’t work the same way, or I don’t think it does — we still have no idea how a tar pit works. The affected area is much smaller too, but I think it should be really useful.”

  “Damn right,” said Elizabeth, sounding impressed. “It means anyone chasing us through jump space can’t try and overshoot and land right on top of us. Anything that gives us longer to prepare for an attack is invaluable. Will it prevent us jumping though? How long will the effect last once we turn it off?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll need to test it and see. In theory we might still be able to jump, if the Wanderer can retain enough control over the disruption patterns generated then it could ensure the jump engines match the same patterns.”

  “We should test that soon then, while we’re out here in the middle of nowhere. And we need to keep it as a last resort — the aim is to pass the Wanderer off as a normal ship. Just one use of the unique abilities she has and our cover will be blown.”

  “Yes, I know,” Jess replied testily.

  “Good. Now, is there anything else you’ve added.”

  “No, that’s it.”

  “Well that’ll do for me. Good work, though you should have told us about it sooner.”

  “Pretty impressive,” Ali said, leaning over and giving Jess a peck on his cheek. Hidden by the table, her hand squeezed the top of his leg — promising more than a kiss later.

  “Good work,” Sal said.

  She almost seemed to bite the words off. She was clearly still upset about something, but Jess couldn’t understand why. Was his avoiding telling them the details of the changes really that big a problem? Or was there something else he’d done?

  The sudden distance hurt him more than he would have expected. Sal and he shared common ground, both having been raised as prisoners and kept that way until only a few weeks before. Ali and Elizabeth could never truly understand that world. While he was glad to be away from it, and didn’t need any reminders, his life as a prisoner still defined who he was in so many ways. Sal could understand that.

  The others started to discuss something else but Jess wasn’t listening. It wasn’t just Sal’s anger that distracted him, it was also the things he hadn’t told the others. Technically he’d told the truth. There weren’t any other changes that had been made. Yet. However he was working closely with the ship on other ideas, and if he and the Wanderer could iron out the details then they would quickly be incorporated into the ship.

  Jess wondered if he should tell the others, but decided against it. The ideas he had might come to nothing, in fact probably would come to nothing in most cases. He didn’t want to look stupid by suggesting things which proved to be unworkable. He’d tell everyone when, or if, any of the ideas worked out.

  *****

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Elizabeth’s voice jerked Sal from her thoughts. Sal was sitting in a chair on the flight deck staring into space.

  “What?” Sal replied, flustered.

  “Whatever has you coiled up like a spring,” Elizabeth said, voice gentle but firm. “Jess needed to be shaken up a bit, but you nearly tore his head off.”

  Emotions raged within Sal. Part of her desperately wanted to talk, while another part wanted to just bury the worries and pain. Elizabeth waited patiently while the conflicting urges raged through Sal. Finally the desire to speak won out.

  “Markus,” she replied. “It’s Markus. I keep dreaming about him. Then he’s on my mind all the time I’m awake. I want to try and find him, but there’s just no way to do it. I don’t know where we were when we met, where he was taken to or anything else we could use to track him down.

  Chasing off after the Wanderer’s home will make things even worse. Once we cross the Quarantine Zone that’s as good as saying I’ll never try to find him. Going there is Jess’s idea, or his and the ship’s, so I started to blame him. That all came to a head when I lost my temper.

  I know that finding Markus is impossible and I should give up on the idea, but then I feel guilty for not at least trying. I’ll spend the rest of my life feeling guilty and wondering if maybe, just maybe, we could have tracked him down and saved him.”

  “That kind of regret can stay with you for a lifetime,” Elizabeth said softly. Her face clouded for a few moments, then she pulled herself together. “OK, I can understand the way you’re feeling. This is going to eat away at you forever if you don’t tackle it. So you need to start looking for him.”

  “What?” Sal asked in surprise.

  “Start looking. But don’t expect to track him down, in fact you need to harden your heart to the fact that it’s almost certain you won’t find him. You can at least start looking for him though.”

  “I’m not sure the others will…”

  “Of course they will!” Elizabeth interrupted. “You’ve all already gone chasing off to rescue people for Ali, and agreed to Jess’s plan to fly to the edges of known space. They’ll help you. I know they will.”

  “Even if they do… where do we start?”

  “Good question. Let’s bring the others into this. They’ll probably have some ideas too.”

  “What, now?”

  “Yep. No time like the present.”

  Chapter Eight

  20 years before…

  “Cover!” shouted Diego, the point man for squad Alpha.

  Dash threw himself behind a large cargo crate as gunfire roared from ahead. They were partway across a large storage area littered with goods and rubbish.

  Dash heard a scream to his right. One of the troopers was down, most of their head missing. Dash couldn’t tell who it was, just that they were from squad Charlie.

  “Alpha, lay down suppressive fire,” he barked out. “Bravo, flank to the left. Charlie to the right. And for gods sake, keep your heads down.”

  As Alpha started laying down suppressive fire the rest of Dash’s troopers started moving to the sides. Dash fought the urge to look himself, to add his own fire to the suppression. As commander it was important that he keep himself safe.

  Instead he pulled up the view from Diego’s helmet camera. Pirates were dug in at seven or eight positions. Their positioning was good, giving wide fields of fire while retaining decent cover. Dash knew they’d be able to delay his force easily, and doing so would mean more pirates could join them. Pretty soon Dash’s force would be pinned down and overwhelmed.

  “Alpha, Bravo, Charlie — go heavy.”

  “Alpha preparing to go heavy.”

  “Bravo ready to go heavy.”

  No reply came from Charlie. That told Dash who had died. Antón, known as sugar lips because he was always dating someone new. Now he’d be dating no one else.

  Dash cursed. They needed Antón’s gear. He knew he should send someone else to collect it, but he was in the best position by far. Crouching tensely he chose his moment.

  Another roll of thunderous fire rolled out from Alpha. Dash sprinted forwards, grabbed the heavy weapon from Antón then threw himself behind a crate. Something struck his left leg just before he made it to cover. The whole leg erupted in pain.

  Cursing at the pain Dash checked his leg. He’d got lucky. The suit’s armour was dented but the shot hadn’t penetrated. It would be sore as hell for a few days, but it could have been far worse. He keyed low-level localised pain relief which would dull the pain slightly. As commander he couldn’t risk anything stronger, he needed to be thinking clearly.

  Climbing to a crouch with a groan of pain, Dash prepared the heavy
weapon. The Empire might scrimp on the main weapons they gave his team but the opposite was true of the heavy weaponry. Boomers, as the troops called them, were hellishly effective and even more hellishly expensive. For that reason their use was vigorously discouraged. Dash knew the Commandant would strongly criticise his using three in one go. He didn’t care. It was necessary.

  Having primed the Boomer Dash used its controls to set the rough location it needed to hit.

  “Alpha, Bravo — launch Boomers,” he called over the radio, triggering his own Boomer at the same time.

  The weapon fired with a soft whoosh, followed by clicking as it prepared to be fired again. Each Boomer could be fired three times. The launcher was relatively simple and cheap, it was the ordnance that cost a fortune.

  “Bravo, Raptor away,” came the call over the radio.

  “Alpha, Raptor is loose.”

  Raptor was the name trooper’s used for the ordnance Boomers fired. Each Raptor was a small but viciously deadly robotic killer, packing in razor-sharp cutting blades and a powerful laser.

  The Raptor would rely on the Friend or Foe signal from his team’s suits to avoid targeting anyone it shouldn't. Other than that, anyone or anything alive was fair game — with human shaped targets given priority.

  Almost immediately screams started to erupt from the pirates’ positions. Within seconds the screams, and the gunfire, ceased.

  “Alpha, hold position. Bravo, Charlie — finish flanking those positions. Stay sharp for more targets, and keep clear of the Raptors.”

  While the Raptors shouldn’t attack his troopers they could still be dangerous. In particular they had a limited lifespan. Something like two minutes and twenty-six seconds after being launched they would self destruct, denying any enemy the chance to study their workings. The time varied slightly and was chosen to be difficult to estimate. The explosions were small but could be dangerous if his men were too close.

  “Sergeant, Bravo is clear.”

  “Sergeant, Charlie is clear. We lost Antón though.”