[01] Elite: Wanted (12 page)

Harlan was standing in front of the large window. He was wearing his trademark white linen suit, holding his cane behind his back. An argument with a knife-wielding smuggler just over ten years earlier had left him with nerve damage in his left leg. The medical facilities on the station just weren’t quite up to repairing the damage, and Harlan never left the station long enough to get it fixed elsewhere.

‘Hey, Harlan,’ Ravindra said, walking up to him. Harlan just nodded. Then she noticed the comms link icon blinking in her lenses. She opened the connection and found a link to sensor information coming in from the station and the results of a lidar scan from one of the orbital defence satellites. It showed a corvette in high orbit. Made by the Federation, the corvettes were multi-role warships comparable to the Imperial cutters. They were a little slower but more heavily armed.

The station’s sensors showed that the Anaconda docking with the station was heavily armoured, had a shield projector and carried enough firepower to give a frigate a run for its money. It wasn’t as fast or as manoeuvrable as the
Song of Stone
but it certainly packed a far heavier punch. Ravindra was beginning to get a sinking feeling as she looked at the converted freighter. There was something wrong with the ship’s configuration. The cargo hold looked like it had been extensively modified.

‘See the hangar doors?’ Harlan asked. Ravindra had noticed them. She was looking down now. The Anaconda was too big to come into the station proper and a docking umbilical was extending from the station to mate with the ship.

‘Fighters?’ Ravindra asked. Harlan nodded. The Anaconda was a large ship. Ravindra was trying to do the math. If the cargo hold had been completely converted to a flight deck how many fighters could it hold? She didn’t like the numbers she was coming up with. Ravindra opened her mouth to ask if the corvette and the Anaconda were here for her, but Harlan held up his arm.

‘Let’s talk in my office,’ he said

‘Brandy?’ Harlan asked. Ravindra shook her head. She had a feeling that it was going to be a very long day, to the point where she suspected an offer of stims would be more useful.

Harlan took some time fixing himself a drink and then sat down behind his hardwood desk, ownership of which would probably have gotten him executed for crimes against the environment in the Sol system.

‘They’re here for us, right? The Corvette’s back up for the Anaconda?’ Ravindra asked, sitting down in one of the comfortable green leather chairs on the opposite side of the desk.

‘You’ve chipped a tooth,’ Harlan said. ‘You’re walking a little stiff and the
Song
’s E-bomb is missing. I take it things didn’t go well?’

‘I’m not going to talk about it,’ Ravindra said wearily. ‘And the hard scan was out of order.’

‘I didn’t know what was coming back. There are some very concerned people who want to speak to you.’

‘Is this where you tell me you told me so?’ Ravindra asked. The leather chair felt so comfortable. She wanted to go to sleep in it and then wake up, have a drink with Harlan and see Harnack off properly. She knew it wasn’t going to happen.

‘Who’d you lose?’ Harlan asked.

‘Harnack,’ Ravindra finally told him. He just nodded, not saying anything else, his expression hard to read.

‘Are they Syndicate?’ Ravindra finally asked.

‘The ship that just docked is the
Omerta
, there’s a Veil on board.’ Ravindra was suddenly very much awake. Just for a moment fear was written all over her face, before she managed to regain control. ‘Sure you don’t want that drink now?’ Harlan asked. She accepted the drink.

‘They here to talk?’ Ravindra asked.

‘They are. Will you listen, girl?’

This time being called ‘girl’ rankled her.

‘What does our protection get us?’ Ravindra asked.

‘A polite request to them not to kill you and mess up my station.’

‘You hanging us out to dry?’

Harlan’s expression softened. There was sympathy there, but not guilt. He took a sip of his bourbon.

‘No,’ he finally said. ‘I’ll sit in your corner, but let’s be clear about one thing, I … we … can’t stand up to the Syndicate.’

‘Like we couldn’t stand up to the Empire?’ Ravindra asked. It was a low blow and she knew it, but she had to do what she could for her crew.
Now
she could see the guilt in his face.
Now
he suddenly looked old and tired.

‘The Empire gave us a stand-up fight. The Judas Syndicate will already have people on the station. They don’t like what they hear, they’ll just murder me, put one of theirs in my place and nothing is very much fun anymore. You know that.’

Ravindra nodded.

‘I’ll do what I can. I’ll fight your corner, run interference …’

‘Make sure Ji’s okay?’

Harlan stopped for a moment. He just looked at her. Then said. ‘I’ll look after the boy.’

Ravindra opened her mouth to ask about refitting the
Song
, but Harlan had the distant look of someone who was receiving information via his lenses.

‘There’s a number of very serious-looking people making their way towards the
Song
right now,’ Harlan told her. Harlan forwarded the security feed he was receiving to Ravindra.

They didn’t waste any time
, Ravindra thought as she turned and ran for the door.

She made it to the elevator and called it. It seemed to take forever.

‘Orla,’ she said over her comms link. She could hear Harlan limping after her, talking into his own comms link. ‘You’ve got the Syndicate incoming. Looks like about eight or so, fully armed. Lock up the berth, lock up the ship, do not engage.’

The elevator arrived as Harlan caught up with her.

‘Security override on berth 44D. Lock it down tight,’ he said into his comms link. ‘I want Taylor and two squads of security there, armed for bear.’

Both of them stepped into the elevator. Orla hadn’t replied.

‘Orla! Orla, respond!’ Ravindra shouted, as though raising her voice would make a difference. ‘Run a diagnostics on comms,’ she told her computer ring as she drew and checked both burst pistols. ‘Have you screwed me?’ she asked Harlan evenly. Harlan didn’t even glance down at the two burst pistols.

‘No,’ he said, looking her straight in the eyes.

‘Then why are the comms down?’

‘I don’t know, but the security override on your berth isn’t working either.’

‘They walk up on the
Song
like that, Jonty’s going to turn them to red steam with the pulse lasers.’

‘I can’t have your crew killing Syndicate on my station, darlin’, I just can’t.’

‘Then you need to get between them and my people, and do it quickly.’ If Harlan was telling the truth then someone had screwed them both. The elevator door opened and Ravindra started running. Those that knew her well enough, and saw that she was armed, got out of the way. Harlan came limping after her.

Ravindra could see the station’s security running towards the corridor that led to the fourth level of docking berths. The security was mainly made up of wandering gunmen and women, most of them with a price on their heads, who had settled in Whit’s Station and who Harlan had decided to put to good use. They were competent or Harlan wouldn’t have hired them, but they weren’t going to get there in time, either.

This doesn’t make sense.
Ravindra sprinted into the docking berth. The
Song of Stone
, high on its landing struts, filled the berth. Even scarred up with blackened score lines from the Cobra’s laser, she still looked majestic. A technological bird of prey, sleek, proud and deadly. There was no sign of violence. The ramp to the ship was down and the airlock door was open, as it normally was when they were berthed and working on the ship.

Ravindra advanced into the berth, both pistols up, scanning left, right, up and down. She heard them before she saw them. The sounds of boots falling on the ramp. Ravindra moved quickly behind a packing crate that some of the
Song
’s missile components had come in. Both her pistols were levelled at the ramp.

They came down cautiously. They had projectile carbines at the ready and were scanning all around them. These weren’t low-level criminal enforcers. These were clearly military contractors. If Ravindra had to guess, then she thought they were probably slave auxiliaries from one of the contract military Ludi.

They were onto her immediately. Three of them emerged from the ship. Two of them had their carbines levelled at her, the third was checking all around the berth.

How did they get onto the ship? Why hadn’t they been taken out in the berth? Why hadn’t the ship been buttoned up?

They were shouting at her to drop the pistols and put her hands on her head.

‘Not going to happen! Put the guns down, lie face down on the deck, lace your fingers behind your heads!’ she shouted back. It was a waste of time. She had been here before. This was the moment before a gunfight. She resolved to start it. It was the closest thing to an edge she would get. She started to squeeze both triggers.

‘Enough!’ The slave-soldiers went quiet but kept their carbines levelled at her as they moved to better cover. The voice hadn’t sounded like a shout, but it had carried, and it was a voice that was used to being obeyed. ‘Captain Khanguire, I would like to speak to you. Reason with you. I want to see if I can impress upon you the seriousness of this situation. I, with the rest of my men, am going to come down the ramp. You are going to see some things that will upset you. I implore you not to overreact.’

‘Just you!’ Ravindra shouted back.

‘That’s not how this is going to happen, I’m afraid. If you shoot then nobody gets what they want. We’re coming down now.’

The contractors wore civilian versions of dark-coloured military clothing. All of them had their weapons up, several had them pointed at her and she found herself looking down the barrels of underslung grenade launchers. Ravindra saw one of them pushing a battered-looking Jenny in front of them. Her hands were locked in front of her neck, attached to an explosive slave collar. Ravindra felt her gorge rise when she saw the collar.

The man whom she assumed had done the talking wore an immaculately tailored suit that she guessed came from one of the Imperial houses on Capitol. He had a bowler hat on, and from under the hat flowed a white veil that obscured his features. Even with Harlan’s warning, her heart still sank. Somehow she had struggled to believe that the Judas Syndicate would actually send a Veil.

The last two slave contractors out of the
Song
were carrying a collapsible stretcher with a body bag on it. Ravindra desperately wanted to shoot someone. With a whisper she switched the burst pistol in her right hand, always her more accurate, from fully automatic to semi-automatic. She shifted it by increments until the crosshairs settled over the slave-soldier that was holding Jenny. She knew she could kill him, but then a shot from a grenade launcher would turn her into so much flying meat.

‘Can I assume that you now understand the gravity of the situation?’ the Veil asked. Somehow his voice seemed quiet, though it carried and she had no problem understanding every syllable.

‘I’m sorry, Rav.’ Jenny said miserably.

‘It’s all right,’ Ravindra lied to the engineer. ‘Who’s in the bag?’

Jenny looked confused for a moment.

‘Harnack,’ Jenny told her. That didn’t make sense to Ravindra. She couldn’t understand what the Syndicate would want with Harnack’s body.

‘Orla and Jonty?’

‘They are both fine,’ the Veil informed her.

‘I’m not talking to you’ Ravindra told him.

‘They got shocked pretty bad but they’ll live,’ Jenny said. ‘There was nothing, no warning, just suddenly they were in the ship …’

‘
Decanus
, please gag Miss Storrow,’ the Veil said. The slave-soldier holding the diminutive engineer grabbed her by the head and forced a self-expanding ball gag into her mouth. Jenny’s nostrils flared and Ravindra could read the anger in her eyes.

‘Okay,’ Ravindra said. ‘So I kill you, and the rest of your guys get me – assuming they’re still interested in the contract and being a slave after I’ve sprayed your head all over my pretty ship.’

The Veil was shaking his head as she spoke.

‘Do you really think this is just another frontier gunfight? Do you honestly think that I would waste my time, these resources, for that?’

She had to concede that he had a point.

At that moment, Harlan and the station security turned up. Ravindra remained behind the crate and the Veil stayed standing where he was. There was some more shouting and gun pointing.

‘Enough!’ Harlan finally yelled before limping into the berth to stand, leaning on his cane, between the station gunmen and women, and the slave-soldiers. He did not block Ravindra’s view of the Veil. Her arms were starting to hurt from holding the pistols up.

‘Let’s see if we can’t settle this with a conversation,’ Harlan suggested.

‘Ah yes, good old-fashioned common sense masquerading as folksy frontier wisdom. The peacemaker. The compromiser. I am afraid not,’ the Veil said, walking forward beyond the protective cordon of his unhappy-looking slave-soldiers. Ravindra felt some of the station security personnel shift slightly, nervously changing the grip on their weapons. She suspected that nobody wanted to be the one that killed a Judas Syndicate Veil.

‘We are an organisation that prides ourselves on anonymity. Our whole point is that we could be anyone. This encourages people not to mess with us, because they never know who we could be. Their dentist, a man sitting next to them on a park bench, a woman in a bar, their oldest friend, a lover. You get that, right?’

Ravindra wasn’t sure who he was talking to, but she kept her left pistol on him, her right pistol on the slave-soldier closest to the gagged and furious Jenny.

‘So can you imagine how unhappy we are when one of us actually has to appear in public? I mean, this is a media event. By now someone will have told someone else, who will have told someone else and then everyone will be trying to trace me, find out who I am, because – for cop or journo – discovering the identity of a Veil would be a major coup. We will almost certainly have to kill a few journalists over this. And do you appreciate how much I value my anonymity?’