[01] Elite: Wanted (7 page)

The grenade shot through the glittering silver rain of anti-laser chaff and exploded in the hail of ice fragments. Newman’s remaining mercs were thrown into the air and bounced off the underside of the Cobra. The targeting systems on Ravindra’s EM carbine tried to compensate as she followed one of the bouncing figures, firing short burst after short burst of needle-like, electromagnetically powered, low calibre rounds at the merc. The needles hit home, penetrating the suit’s armour, destroying its integrity, letting vacuum in and ripping into the man’s flesh.

Ravindra glanced around through the chaff, which was rapidly floating away at its initial launch velocity. Newman was nowhere to be seen. He’d been Harnack’s job, but Harnack’s bio readout on her lenses had flat-lined. She risked a glance behind her. Harnack was still adhered to the loading ramp, but it looked as if he was swaying in an invisible wind. The visor on his suit had been smashed. There was something that looked not unlike a red bonsai tree growing from the hole in his visor, where leaking blood had flash-frozen.

Refracted red light filled her vision and she felt heat on the side of her helmet. They’d missed a sniper. Somewhere out on the ice one of Newman’s people had a powerful longlaser and was targeting them through the thinning chaff. Worse, Newman had made it back into the Cobra.

‘Sniper on the ice, starboard,’ Ravindra said over the secure comms link. ‘Jenny, Newman made it back to the Cobra.’ She knelt down, aiming the carbine out into the ice. Jenny ran across in front of her, and Ravindra raised the carbine as she passed. Any moment now the Cobra’s pulse lasers would have a clear targeting solution through the chaff, and she and Jenny would be nothing more than a cloud of red steam.

There was another flash of red and part of Jenny’s armour glowed. It looked as if smoke was pouring off it, but the smoke was actually particles of superheated carbon being blown off the suit’s armour. It was enough. Ravindra had seen the beam. The carbine’s targeting systems interpreted the visual data from Ravindra’s lenses. Ravindra triggered long burst after long burst, suppressing the area where the shot had come from. At the same time, she sent the targeting information to the
Song
.

‘Rav, get out of there,’ Jonty called urgently over the comms link. Ravindra started running towards Newman’s Cobra. The
Song
’s pulse laser started firing. The ice to the starboard of the cutter exploded upwards in geysers of steam, which subsequently refroze into a beautiful, glittering, and structurally fragile wall of ice.

Behind her, too, something similar was happening, as the Cobra’s pulse laser tried to target her through what was left of the chaff. Her world was red. She could feel the heat through her suit. Armour plate was starting to run like melted toffee. She was aware of, rather than saw, the
Song
’s military laser stabbing out into the Cobra until the other ship’s pulse lasers stopped firing.

Ravindra made it to the Cobra’s loading ramp. She could feel the ship shift underneath her. Jenny was holding a thermal cord frame charge in her left hand, her EM carbine at port in her right. She adhered the frame charge to the inner airlock door the moment its assembly program had finished. Behind and beneath them the loading ramp was rising and closing to form the external airlock seal.

‘They’re rabbiting,’ Ravindra said over the comms link. A moment later she felt the Cobra judder as the ice shook. The
Song
had just vertically launched a missile.. Ravindra and Jenny stood either side of the frame charge and Jenny sent the detonation sequence. The thermal cord glowed white hot and part of the inner airlock door turned to molten metal as the cutting charge burned a large rectangular hole in it. They felt the unmistakeable sensation of a ship taking off as the Cobra left the ice asteroid.

‘Through!’ Jenny shouted over the comms link.

Ravindra delivered a suit-servo assisted kick to the rectangular piece of blast door. It slid out with a clang onto the cargo bay floor and then fell forwards. The edges of the hole were still glowing bright white. Jenny was already diving through, firing a fragmentation grenade from the underslung grenade launcher, to clear the Cobra’s cargo bay. The recoil kick on the grenade launcher was almost enough to halt her forwards momentum in the microgravity. Ravindra fired the underslung grenade launcher on her carbine. The recoil bounced her back, the suit servos compensated for a degree and the griphook soles kept her anchored. Then she dived forwards following Jenny. Someone fired a grenade at them from inside the cargo bay. One of the incoming grenades clipped her, sending her spinning, as it flew into the airlock compartment. Even through her armoured suit she felt the burning heat as the spin made her leg contact the white molten metal edge of the newly cut hole. Then all four grenades went off.

Because they had been in freefall, the first of the concussion waves from the two fragmentation grenades they’d fired kicked them about, bouncing them off walls and the ceiling. Shrapnel embedded itself in their suits’ armour. Then the two grenades in the airlock went off. The airlock contained most of the explosion, but it didn’t stop them from getting another battering.

Ravindra triggered the magnetic element of the griphook soles and shot up to the corner of the roof and the wall, one foot on each. She had a moment to take in the cargo bay. It was the usual large open space – rails running along the roof, connections for winches and containers. Empty tool shelves ran up either side of the cargo bay. The far door, the one that led into the crew compartment and bridge of the Cobra, was sliding shut.

The two mercenaries left in the cargo bay were starting to recover. Their armoured suits were a mess; Ravindra was pretty sure that one of them was no longer functioning. They were trying to bring their laser carbines to bear on the two intruders who would have no reflective chaff to help them this time.

There was a strobing burst of red light. Ravindra screamed as her skin burnt, even through the insulating layers of the suit. One of the ceramic plates on the front of her suit turned red for a moment and then superheated and exploded. She brought the EM carbine up and fired another grenade, the recoil throwing her back into the ceiling. It hadn’t been her best shot, but it was a trick that Harnack had taught her. Hundreds of razor sharp flechettes burst from the grenade launcher’s muzzle and spread out. You only had to be so accurate when you fired the equivalent of a thirty-millimetre shotgun cartridge loaded with armour piercing needles. She caught the merc who had been firing at her. He staggered back. She saw his visor crack but not break. She steadied herself, moved the EM carbine until the crosshairs settled on his visor, fired a short burst, adjusted her aim, fired again, adjusted her aim, and fired again. Blood and bits of helmet went flying away from the merc in slow motion in the microgravity. He went windmilling backwards, but his magnetic boots kept him anchored to the deck.

Jenny had anchored herself to the floor and was firing at the other merc, who was using a small, square crate as cover.

‘Brace,’ Orla said over the comms. Ravindra triggered the magnetic application on the griphook pads on her knees and elbows and tried to flatten herself against the roof.

The missile had been forced to take a circuitous route above and around to hit the Cobra’s main thrusters at the rear of the ship. The impact forced the rear of the craft downwards towards the asteroid. Even attached to the superstructure, Jenny and Ravindra received a thorough battering – both of them would be black and blue, Ravindra had chipped a tooth and felt like passing out. Ravindra, with a pilot’s instincts, was pretty sure that the Cobra was in a spin.

The other merc was floating free. The impact had torn him off the deck, his magnetic boots notwithstanding. Something about his posture told Ravindra that his neck was broken.

‘Double tap,’ Ravindra told Jenny. The engineer climbed groggily to her feet and advanced, firing two bursts of electromagnetically propelled rounds into the last merc’s face through his visor.

Ravindra kicked off from the ceiling and floated down to the deck. Just as her magnetics attached themselves to the hull there was another impact, this one considerably less hard. Ravindra guessed that the Cobra had spun round and bounced off the asteroid.

They moved up to the internal door.

‘Is that the payload?’ Jenny asked, meaning the square crate. It seemed likely. It was the only thing in the cargo bay. The door was closed and locked. Jenny sent an override signal through her suit’s comms and the door slid open. Ravindra stepped into the interior of the Cobra checking all around her, the EM carbine’s barrel moving where she looked. They were in a narrow stairwell. Bare narrow steps led up, though there was room for crew to pull themselves up in the zero G. She and Jenny moved up the steps and found themselves in the crew quarters. There were eight bunks attached to the floor and the walls, and everything was neatly packed away – necessary in the zero G environment. It was empty, but they could see through into the Cobra’s bridge/cockpit. There was a woman silhouetted in the doorway to the bridge.

‘Shit!’ she exclaimed and then disappeared back into the cockpit. Through the transparent front of the cockpit they could see the surface of the asteroid coming into view as the Cobra spun round for another bounce.

Ravindra clipped the EM carbine to the front of her suit, drew one of her burst pistols and advanced with it held in both hands. The pistol was loaded with frangible rounds and was less likely than the EM Carbine to damage anything important. Jenny was right behind her. The door to the bridge started to slide shut.

‘Don’t be stupid!’ Ravindra shouted through her suit’s loudspeaker. The door halted and then slid open. There was another thud as the Cobra’s nose impacted with the asteroid in a slow motion explosion of ice. The Cobra started to spin slowly the other way.

Ravindra advanced on the cockpit with Jenny following, moving backwards, covering their rear.

The woman in the cockpit was a little younger than Jenny, dark haired and was wearing a leatherish jacket over a flight suit. She had her hands up and was cringing away from the gun.

‘Newman?’ Ravindra demanded.

‘He ejected,’ the woman told her. If she was lying, then she was a good actor; she seemed too frightened to lie.

‘Orla, did you guys see a pod ejecting?’ Ravindra asked over the comms. Jenny was swearing quietly under her breath, unaware her suit mic was picking it up. ‘Jenny,’ Ravindra said quietly. The engineer stopped swearing. Outside the cockpit the stars had come back into view.

‘Nothing,’ Orla said.

‘Any chance you could have missed it?’

‘Was it stealthed?’ Orla asked. Ravindra swore. That meant yes, they could have missed it.

‘Is the crate in the hold the payload? The score’ Ravindra asked the Cobra’s pilot.

‘Yes,’ the pilot said. She was shaking now, tears leaking out of her eyes.

‘What’s in it’ Jenny asked.

‘I don’t know. I swear!’ the pilot said.

‘Why didn’t Newman take it with him?’ Ravindra demanded.

‘I don’t know! Too big?’ the pilot suggested desperately.

‘Where’d Newman go?’

‘I don’t know! Please!’

‘Are you lying?’ Ravindra asked.

‘No’ the pilot said miserably.

‘I believe you,’ Ravindra said.

‘You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?’

Ravindra pulled the trigger on the pistol. Twice. The frangible bullets disintegrated in the pilot’s skull, but only a little bit of her head spattered against the Cobra’s cockpit. The pilot slumped forwards.

‘Sorry,’ Ravindra said as smoke curled out of the burst pistol’s barrel. She closed her eyes, allowing herself a moment, though she knew how sloppy she was being. Harnack was gone. She had known him for the better part of twenty years. He had taught all of them how to fight. It had been him and Marvin that had looked out for them all in the Warren. One second he had been there and the next he was dead. She had to blink back the tears. She swallowed hard.

‘We need to search the rest of the ship,’ she told Jenny. ‘Orla, can you get grapples on this piece of crap, get it to stop spinning?’

Ravindra and Jenny were back on the
Song of Stone
. They had searched the Cobra thoroughly but they hadn’t found Newman. They had brought the cargo on-board. As far as they could tell it was the payload, but it was armoured and shielded against scans. It also looked as if any attempt to open it without the correct codes would result in the destruction of the box’s contents. This suited Ravindra. It was best not to know the Judas Syndicate’s business.

Jenny and Ravindra had looked after their own wounds. It was mainly blistering from first and second degree burns and lots of bruising. Ravindra would need to get her tooth capped at some point.

Orla had gone over the
Song
’s sensor logs. She had found enough tells to suggest a stealthed pod ejection, possibly during the missile impact. Ravindra had wanted to be angry with her first mate, but frankly, even if they had detected the pod, they would have been hard put to scratch it with the military laser. Little short of an energy bomb could hurt escape pods.

They had brought Harnack’s body on board, put it in a body bag and strapped it to one of the shelves in the cargo bay. Jonty had watched all this not saying a word, his face an expressionless mask. It was all in his eyes. Fury. Jenny had wept. Orla had held her but there had been tears in her own eyes.

They were sitting on the bridge again. They had destroyed the Cobra to leave as little trace as possible and then put several random jumps between themselves and the ice asteroid. They were in the middle of nowhere. Space had a lot of that.

Ravindra had turned her pilot’s chair around and was looking at her remaining crew. She wanted to apologise to them, but every choice they had made they had agreed upon and she couldn’t risk appearing weak now. She would cry for Harnack when she was on her own. A bottle of brandy would be company enough.

‘Well?’ she asked.