Battle in the Clouds

Peyindur Gas Giant, Newcomb/Banasdan, 072/989

While Jeremiah covered the corridor, Vasquez examined the manual hatch leading into the starboard magazine. A moment of doubt led her to ask her comrade to check it for traps, which he did, after which she opened it and peered inside.

Serried ranks of intership missiles lurked sharklike in the gloom, their crimson tips heavy with slumbering menace. Working quickly, the Solomani spy wormed her satchel charge as far into the racks as she could, well out of sight, and set the timer for twenty minutes. Then she closed the hatch, spun the wheel, drew her energy blade, and carved the wheels off both magazine hatches, sealing them beyond opening by all but heavy machinery.

Meanwhile, Jeremiah had discovered the iris valve leading down to the tiny lower deck occupied by the gunners. Unclipping a hand grenade, he tied a length of string between the ring and a pipe on the wall, leaving the grenade resting on the top of the hatch. When it was opened, anyone below was going to be sharing the deck with a live grenade!

This done, they used their energy blades to jam the iris valves leading up to the bridge deck, trapping the remaining pirates aboard, and retreated back the way they'd come. The last thing Vasquez did as she left the ship was to shear off at the hinges the hatch they'd come in by.

All this time, the intercoms of their suits had been alive with the sounds of battle. Fox and Hum were pinned down at the back of the cargo deck, sheltering behind the faux cargo that concealed the extra M-Drive plant. Four pirates in combat armour had blasted in the two iris valves at the front "corners" of the cargo hold, and were likewise pinned down behind three large crates that they'd brought aboard with them.

The breaking of the valves had left the ship open to the hideous atmosphere of the gas giant they were orbiting, and a variable mixture of dust, methane and other hydrcarbons was howling through the cargo deck, driven inside by the two-hundred-mile-an-hour wind of the ships' passage through the atmosphere. The turbulence and density was such that even with their battledress' enhancements, Fox and Hum could barely see what they were shooting at. Both sides were using gauss fire only; nobody was stupid enough to use anything that would bring fire into that maelstrom.

Making their way forward along the upper deck, Vasquez and Jeremiah reached the bridge, the floor hatch of which was almost directly above the pirates' position. Victor was seated in the pilot's chair, keeping the ship level with considerable assistance from the computer autopilot program.

If they were to open the hatch, the pressure of the gas on the other side was going to blast it up into the bridge, not a problem for the armoured agents or the inorganic Victor but probably quite damaging to the bridge instruments. Vasquez ordered Victor to increase the atmospheric pressure on the bridge above what it was in the cargo hold, which he did; the pair felt even their robust battledress creak as the pressure built. Turning off the bridge lights to minimize the chance of being spotted, the pair arranged themselves so they could fire at angles through the hatch and attack both groups of pirates, and ordered Victor to open the valve.

The spiral plates swirled open, and a hailstorm of gauss fire rained down on the unsuspecting pirates. Vasquez and Jeremiah sprayed bullets across them all, and then Victor slammed the hatch shut again in time to deflect the return fire. Vasquez taunted them over a broadcast radio signal, telling them that their ship was mined, and then they opened the hatch again.

The pair were ready, Jeremiah's rifle and Vasquez' pistols poised, and another  salvo of gauss fire sent three of the four pirates to the  ground dead. The last one surrendered, and was taken prisoner.

With the resistance crushed, Vasquez and Jeremiah ventured back onto the pirate ship, hauling their thoroughly demoralized prisoner with them. With only mild mistreatment he had confirmed that, besides himself, only four of the privateer's complement remained, all bridge crew.

Pausing at the captain's office to cut open the safe and acquire the ship's papers and a thick sheaf of Imperial credits, the pair returned to the corridor where Dusty Bin the robot had met his Mecha.

Standing below the hatch, they radioed up to the bridge, suggesting the crew should either surrender or undock and fly away.

"Disarm your bomb first!" came the reply.

''What bomb? There's no bomb. D'yer think I'd be here talking to you if there was?" Vasquez tried. For some reason she wasn't convincing, and the pirate Captain didn't buy it.

Wielding the energy blade again, she cut through the iris above, opening the bridge. Instantly, a grenade came bouncing innocently down the hatch and onto the decking.

Vasquez and Jeremiah ducked back into the alcoves leading to the down hatches, Vasquez levelling a kick at the grenade as she did. Their prisoner broke free and fled down the central corridor screaming in terror. The kick connected, and the grenade went flying into the SDB's drive room and exploded, wrecking most of the engineering controls.

They crept to the hatch and looked up, just in time to see a silhouette of a pirate look down. Both were armed, but Vasquez was quicker, and another body crashed to the deck plates riddled with bullets.

''Disarm your bomb, and we'll undock," called a voice, leaving unsaid the phrase ''and let you get away".

Time was running out. Vasquez and Jeremiah jogged back to the hatch and dived through, sealing the airlock behind them. Dashing up to the bridge, Vasquez took the helm while Fox jumped into the gunner's seat; without a doubt, the pirates would open fire as soon as they were free. She would have to be careful though; if the ship turned sideways, the air pressure rushing through the smashed hatches in the cargo deck would tear the Nemesis apart.

With a grating crunch the agents could feel through the deck, the two vessels seperated. Eyes glued to the screens, the agents watched as the SDB's nose rose away from the Nemesis' hull, slowly at first and then faster and faster as the airflow of its' headlong flight through the atmosphere exerted pressure.

Vasquez cautiously cracked the throttles and started the Nemesis moving away as Fox swivelled the turrets to cover the pirate, and they began to pull away.

With ponderous, inevitable grace, the SDB fell away from them, the kick of undocking and the wind pressure her only propulsion, and began to tumble through the air, completely out of control.

Vasquez laughed. ''Does this mean I shot the pilot?" she suggested. At that moment, the nose of the SDB rotated into view once more, and Fox caught sight of the gaping opening of the chin hatch. "No..." he said, "when we undocked, their forehatch was still broken open, and you'd cut open the hatch to the bridge deck. Fifty atmospheres' pressure rushed in all at once and filled the ship, smearing the bridge crew against the walls like a piledriver.''

"Everyone aboard that ship is already dead."

In silence they watched the pirate spin away into the turbulent maelstrom, until it was suddenly blotted from view by a massive explosion that vaporized the entire craft as Vasquez' bomb detonated the missile magazines.

Once the glare had faded, Fox resumed the controls and lifted the Nemesis from the violence of the atmosphere into the clean stillness of space, and safety.

Newcomb III, Newcomb/Banasdan, 075/989

Three days later, Fox eased the Nemesis down through the thin atmosphere of the mainworld, and set her gingerly down on a landing pad. Never had he been so glad of a world with lower than Terranormal air pressure!

The useful loot from their encounter with the privateers amounted to Cr150,652, five gauss rifles and 17 clips, and a set of ship's papers for a vessel that no longer existed.

Once again garbed as unexceptional Solomani merchants, the two agents disembarked and paid the docking fees with some of their loot from the recent encounter. With shoulder-holstered pistols and filter-masks, they headed out into Startown to try and source replacement parts.

A dusty, down-at-heel premises proclaiming itself "Veddon's Ship Repairs" was their eventual destination. As with all commercial premises on this rather dangerous world, there were two hired guards outside the door. The proprietor, although unimpressive to look at, was more than willing to do some business, especially when he heard that they were prepared to pay Cr96,000 in hard cash - half now, half on completion. Two large men in greasy overalls, who had been loafing in artful disinterest against a nearby wall, were motivated into action and equipped with tools, adaptor kits and two new iris valves, which they loaded onto floaters and headed out towards the Nemesis with. Fox, Hum and Victor were left in charge of the repairs, which were estimated at seven hours, and Jeremiah and Vasquez headed out into town again.

Enquiring at Veddon's they were advised that one David Bradshaw, working for a shop called Thurwell's, would probably be interested in purchasing their high-tech hand computers from Mimiis. As they were leaving, it occurred to Vasquez to pick up a replacement for the "accidentally" cracked Zucchai crystal, a princely Cr150.

With a day, basically, to kill, the pair went out to Thurwell's, ten miles or so from the 'port. There, they met Bradshaw, who appeared rather dazzled by Vasquez' smile, and quite failed to notice their shoulder holsters. He was very taken with the hand computers - as he should, with them coming from a world rated eight Tech Levels higher! After some thought, he made an initial offer of KCr90 per crate, and allowed himself to be beaten up to KCr102 rather easily. He seemed happy to make the deal at that level, and overjoyed to discover that there were two crates available.

Deal closed, the agents were wandering back towards the bus stop, looking out for a chippy, when they were accosted. A dapper, well-dressed human of asiatic appearance approached them, and, eyeing their merchant ship-suits, asked if they were interested in a profitable deal.

The pair indicated general interest, and the man led them around the corner, to where a local ground car was parked in a quiet side street. Apart from a solitary man leaning on a lamp-post across the road, the place was deserted, and an almost imperceptible nod between the oriental and this individual showed him to be part of the process.

Their contact went to the car boot and stood by it while he started his spiel. He told them he'd got two complete, operational Black Globe force field generators - not the new, rather shaky Imperial copies, but the original salvaged Ancient artifacts. If this were true, he was talking about very rare, very valuable and very illegal hardware indeed.

As the presumed piece de resistance, he opened the car boot to reveal two stubby metal cylinders about 2' across, each festooned with cables and connectors. The pair peered at them for a moment. Then Vasquez pointed. "What's that writing on the side?" she asked. The trader leaned in for a closer look - a fatal error. Vasquez siezed the boot and rammed it down on him, hurling his upper body into the back of the car with a dull clong. The lid came down across his lower body, leaving his legs dangling.

The man across the street was already moving, heading towards them at some speed with his hands reaching for something under his coat. Jeremiah was quicker, however, and his gausspistol was already in his hand and levelled. "You're under arrest!" he announced.

The man was skeptical. "Where's your ID?" he demanded, "and what for? We've done nothing illegal. We bought 'em legit." They realized he was right; on this world, the rule of law was weak and he had probably not committed any crimes - yet.

The man's hands shifted, and Jeremiah caught sight of a shotgun under his coat. A blade flashed, and the enforcer dropped to the ground. Quickly they opened the boot and lugged him on top of what turned out to be his dead accomplice. Securing the keys from the first man's jacket, they forwent taking the bus home and drove back to the starport in (local) style, pausing only at a suitable spot to ditch the bodies.

Examining the "black globes" later, Fox considered for a moment, and then delivered the opinion that they were probably from a Type S-103, perhaps S-105, Scout/Courier starship, and were in fact air-conditioning pumps; probably worn out but perhaps worth a hundred credits or so....