Chapter Five

The Berone Sunrise was more crowded than it had been for a long time. Jan was working in the cockpit with Nias, updating the coding software for the Navigation computer. Ranth was taking the time to check on the weapons systems. Jan was disappointed that Ryath had not been able to come along, but Ranth had insisted that he stay on Chancai. At least that’s what Ranth had told the rest of them. Jan’s comlink chirped. He stepped away from the console and thumbed the button.

   “Yup. How’s it going Ranth?”

   “We’ve got a problem here. I need to see you down in the hold section.” Ranths voice sounded too controlled, as if he was making an extreme effort. Jan took the hint.

   “On my way.” He nodded to Nias and started back into the main body of the ship. It took less than a minute to get to the hold section. He opened the door to find Ranth entangled in what looked like steel mesh. There was a small robotic creature, fashioned like an arachnid, desperately trying to cover him in more of the same. It had locked itself around Ranths arm and was unsuccessfully trying to chew through Ranths armour. Meanwhile Ranth was using his wrist laser to take out its legs one by one. The heat from the laser was causing the armour to glow fiercely. No wonder Ranth had seemed strained.

   “Would you mind taking the small EMP gun off of my belt and attaching the restraining bolt? As quickly as I chop off its legs it seems to create more.” Jan did as he was told, trying to avoid the sharp looking metal mesh that was building up around Ranth. He attached the bolt to the back of the creature and fired the gun. There was an electronic squeal as the electropulse destroyed the droids ability to function. Its legs straightened out and it dropped off onto the floor. The mesh surrounding Ranth started to glow.

   “Stand back. It can’t hurt you as long as you look away.”

Jan did as he was told and moved to the edge of the main hold. As the mesh grew brighter, Jan looked away, he felt a brief flash of heat and there was an intense brightness against his closed eyelids.

   “Okay. You can look now.”

Jan turned around and saw Ranth struggling to keep himself upright. The armour, usually brightly polished, was covered in a grey black residue that was slowly dripping off and then evaporating.

   “What was it?” He’d seen droids before, but nothing like that.

   “A spy droid. Probably of Ki-Ki or Zobian origin.” Ranth knelt down towards it and took out a portable droid kit. Two minutes later, the back panel of the droid was on the floor and Ranth was whistling in appreciation.

   “Very tech. I think Nias should have a look at this later.” A few seconds more of prodding and Ranth seemed to have what he was after.

   “Ah, yes. A Zobian device, they use them to hijack ships. I came across a few when working for CORSEC. There’s a small explosive and a hyperspace transmitter.” He lifted out a recognisable shape. “This one was jury rigged in a hurry. The transmitter still has its own power source.”

Something else concerned Jan.

   “How did it get on board?” He knew he wasn’t going to like the answer.

   “Crawled into one of the crates of equipment that Nias has shipped on board whilst I was looking for an Ion modulation kit.”

Jan felt annoyed at this. He knew Nias should have checked his kit. It was an unforgivable error when Jan had trusted him to bring the equipment on board. He flicked on his comlink.

   “Nias. Get down to the hold. Now.” He didn’t wait for an answer. Two minutes later Nias appeared at the main hatch to the hold.

   “I’ve finished the upgrade to the systems. We should have the,” his voice trailed off, “what the hells of Hoth happened here?” He saw the dismembered droid sitting on the floor. His face went pale. Ranth walked up to him, snatching the security transponder off his belt. Nias had a brief second to realise what had happened before the security system cut in and he was felled by a stun blast. Jan then walked over to the droid and gave it a kick. Ranth handed him the transponder.

   “What do you want to do withDerril?” Ranths voice sounded cold behind the armoured helmet. Jan shivered despite himself.

   “Leave him. He’ll be out until we get to Janos. By which time I’ll need him again.” He looked around the hold again. “If only to clean up this mess.”

Ranth had advised Jan to leave the hyperspace tracer transmitting. Jan was more than concerned about this. Ranth, however, informed him that everything was under control.

They exited hyperspace at the prearranged coordinates. Whilst Ranth fed the second set of jump coordinates into the navigation computer, Jan waited, on edge. He didn’t have to wait for long. The scanners lit up like a Star Destroyer on fire.

   “Incoming, two ships, no life forms on board. Power ratings are off the scale.” Nias’s voice sounded weary and scared. He’d been woken up with a stim shot and he had a headache like a Bantha had trampled him. He’d never forget to check his storage boxes again. Nias flicked shields to full power and started charging the weapons.

   “Hold on. I’m taking us to full thrust.” Jan prepared to bring the ion drive up to full power but Ranth’s voice cut across him sharply.

   “No. Wait until they are almost upon us.” Jan looked around at him as if he had gone mad.

   “Trust me. Just move forward half a click and then face them. Leave the com unit open.” Tarr Ranth sounded too sure of himself, almost over confidant. Jan did as he’d been asked. He didn’t like it, but Ranth sounded sure of himself and his instruction, so he complied.

The ships accelerated and Jan knew it would only be a matter of a few seconds until they were within firing range. He hoped that the artificial intelligence on the craft was low enough to enable them to escape; otherwise this would be a short trip. He rested his hands on the booster control anyway. Years of piloting experience would count for nothing if his nerve gave out now. Nias’s voice suddenly shouted from across the cockpit.

   “One more incoming from hyperspace right on top of us!” Nias looked around at Jan, real fear in his eyes. Jan looked around accusingly at Ranth.

   “You son of a bitch.” He prepared to hit the boosters but was rudely interrupted by a familiar voice.

   “Evening folks. This is Captain Ryath Centaur of the starship Dark Star 2. Please fasten your seatbelts and extinguish any drug based smoking devices.”

The Dark Star swept in above the Sunrise, its giant Ion cannons throwing bursts of blue energy at the attacking ships. Within seconds they were both disabled and drifting in space. The com unit chattered again.

   “Permission to dock Captain.” Ryath’s voice sounded slightly amused. Jan was not and barely contained his anger.

   “Permission granted Captain.” He growled.

By the time that Ryath had docked, Ranth had explained everything. Glann Cipple had known that the Zobians had found out about the valuable cargo although they didn’t know precisely what the cargo was. However, Glann needed to prove they were involved. To do that he needed one of the attacking ships to be intact so that he could interrogate the crew and find out who had leaked the information. He hadn’t known that they would be using robotic ships. Tarr Ranth had known that it would be very difficult for the Sunrise to escape the attacking ships whilst leaving one of them intact. That’s why he’d asked Ryath to watch the jump point and follow any suspect craft to the coordinates Ranth had given him.

Jan could understand this but he couldn’t work out why Ranth had neglected to tell him. When he put this point to Ranth he got a straightforward answer.

   “Who’s to say you or Nias weren’t leaking the information.” Jan was taken aback by this, but it only proved the point - Glann trusted nobody.

   “So why did you trust Ryath and what made you tell me now?” Ryath’s voice answered half the question for him.

   “He didn’t. That’s why I was piloting the Dark Star. Ranth could have deactivated the whole ship remotely if he’d wanted to, leaving me a sitting duck.” Ranth finished the explanation.

   “Derril was scared, his heartbeat was up and his breathing was fast and shallow. You were too prepared to boost out of here. I saw you reaching for the button several times.”

Jan nodded. He’d forgotten how good Ranths armour was.

   “So where do we go now? I suspect the set of coordinates you gave me were fake?” Jan looked at Ranth accusingly. Ranth merely nodded.

   “Next port of call is Desolan - the Lishtarr Krack Bar. We’re going to pick up Gern Omik. He has the name of our contacts and the identification details. Before that we need to download the memory from one of those ships. I suspect we’d better do it quickly as well. We can’t be too sure that there aren’t any more on their way.” He looked across at Nias.

   “There’s a spare suit on my ship. Let’s go.” He handed the hyperspace transmitter to Jan, deactivated. “We might need it again some time.”