'Good idea. Let's see?'
'Two or three minutes…'
She placed the camera down, sat back in the co-pilot's seat and looked at him. 'You okay?'
Alex nodded. 'Shaken. How about you?'
'Bruised, bloody but unbowed. We in the safe zone?'
'Looks that way.'
The Coriolis station span gently before them, bright with sunlight, casting its shadow on the patchy grey and yellow of the huge world below. Several ships were tethered to buoys close by. They looked safe enough. Lights flashed on the Station. Everything gleamed, everything welcomed.
Alex sailed gracefully past the immense flying city, then turned to face the entrance.
But there was no entrance. 'What in God's…?'
He sat there, motionless in space, rotation matched with the Coriolis, facing blank metal. By zooming in he could see the shape of the entrance, closed, now, protectively.
'Afraid of strangers?' Elyssia suggested.
'We need fuel badly. They'd better not be too afraid…'
Then the crackle of an audio message coming in. On the screen, only the space station, with stars and the sun behind.
'Identify, identify. This is Craig Orbit Space.'
'Cobra class trader, the Nemesis,' Alex said. 'We have a cargo of Mymurth.
Open the gates.'
There was silence for a while, though the channel remained open because it continued to hiss and crackle. Then:
'Attention, Nemesis. Mymurth trade in Coriolis stations is prohibited. '
'What? '
'Release your cargo before coming aboard. Release cargo. You will be compensated.'
Alex glanced at Elyssia. 'What the hell do we do?'
'Sounds unprofessional to me,' the woman said. 'Sounds a little fishy…'
She picked up the camera and removed the developed and printed film.
Staring at the two prints for a moment, she suddenly seemed to realise what she was looking at and gasped.
'Oh my Sweet World…' she said slowly, and passed the prints to Alex.
On the screen, the entrance to the space station began to open slowly.
Two lights shone there, like eyes, tiny in the dark void space beyond.
Alex looked at the Thru-V pictures, and for a second couldn't comprehend the grotesque sights he saw. Looking through the bodies of the Mymurth, the camera had picked up the spider-like life-forms that were living inside the shuffling, harmless turtle-forms. The sight was discomforting. Jointed legs seemed to be reaching out into every limb, and every body space. The central black body was shiny, and from it peered a number of bloated, faceted eyes. Two long, bristly tendrils stretched into the Mymurth's brains from each of these hideous parasites.
'What are they?' Alex whispered, and Elyssia said, 'Trouble. They're immature Thargoids' Alex felt his heart quicken. Tharglets! He was transporting Tharglets, the larval forms of one of the most deadly life-forms in the known Galaxy!
Set-up? Being set-up hardly began to describe the way they'd been duped on Xezaor!
No wonder the pirates had closed so ravenously…
'There's good bounty on Tharglets. Navy pays well for research purposes.'
'They're also deadly; and they make ideal mercenary fighters if trained and developed. We've been carrying fighters for Cirag. Pirate fighters. No wonder they want to destroy us. They won't want any evidence lof this…'
Alex stared at the space station. For a moment Elyssia's words just went in and didn't register. He was thinking of the pirates who had attacked, and who had been beaten back…
He was thinking that the danger was over… they were at a Coriolis station, and the only danger now was illegal trading…
He was thinking safety…
He watched as the bright eyes slid forward, out of the space port. Behind the eyes came the bulky shape of the ship to which they were attached.
Behind the ship came light, bright light, a gleaming yellow beam that cast the shadow of the ship across the Nemesis…
The shadow of a snake.
The Cobra!
He would have known that ship anywhere. It was months since he had seen it, but not a night had passed when the shape of it, when the evil of it, had not infested his dreams.
The ship that had destroyed the Avalonia came slowly towards him, and he had no doubt at all as to its identity.
And nor had Elyssia.
She sucked in her breath and moved towards the console. 'I want him. Let me take the controls…'
'Sit down,' Alex said coldly, and Elyssia turned angrily on him.
'I have as much stake in this as you…'
'Luck of the draw,' Alex said. 'The pilot of that ship killed my father…'
'Killed my whole family! We were escaping from Teorge, and we asked that ship for help, for supplies. It took my sister and myself as slaves, and blasted my family's vessel to pieces. I escaped. My sister didn't. Alex, I want that bastard!'
'Too late…'
Fire blossomed from the front of the Cobra. The Nemesis rocked and rattled.
Alex targeted a missile, then stabbed laser fire back. The energy spread over the Cobra's screens like a bright yellow flower.
It accelerated towards them. Alex accelerated too, but rose over the killer, and over the space station.
We can't fight it! We've not got the weapons, nor the defences. Not yet.
Damn! What should we do?
On the rear screen, Alex saw the sombre shape of the killer rising above the Coriolis station. A flash of light presaged the warning INCOMING MISSILE, and Alex targeted the ECM to destroy it. As he did so, he turned.
The two ships tore past each other, majestic metal galleons, raking each other with fire before turning and approaching again.
Twice they duelled in this way. The Nemesis groaned beneath the weight of the laser strikes on its hull; the energy in its storage cells began to drain away. In Alex's mind there was only confusion. The Cobra knew him, and wanted him, and wouldn't let go. And this was the ship he wanted to kill…
But he wasn't equipped to kill it… Not yet. Not yet!
So despite Elyssia's objections, Alex turned and ran for the sun.
The Cobra followed. The two ships manoeuvred and looped, slowed and speeded up. Whenever possible, Alex rear-lasered, and this had the effect of driving the pirate back a little. It targeted and dispatched three more missiles, and Alex shot them down. He was tempted to think that that represented the full missile load of the Cobra, but he wisely avoided such complacency. His own missile remained targeted, ready to fly, but he imagined that it would meet a quick and pointless fate.
The sun edged closer. It grew in size and majesty. The cabin temperature of the Nemesis rose.
Immense arms of plasma curled out from the surface, like weird creatures rising above a molten sea. Alex flew towards one, fuel-scoop ready.
The Cobra fired at him. Shields screeched.
The duelling ships entered the realm of the Inferno…
Alex said, 'It's working. Look…' The fuel gauge was edging up as the scoop sucked in raw plasma and converted it to the energy form needed for Witch-Space transit. He skimmed the Nemesis along the edge of the great ocean of fire. The arms of the corona was millions of miles long, thousands wide, and curling round, like a whirlpool. At its centre, then, there was a calm place, a place away from the heat and danger.
Alex headed towards it. The cabin filled with an eerie brilliance in which shadows seemed to writhe and beckon. The sun was an unbearable glare. The temperature of the ship rose dramatically. Fire played about the hull, and the shields moaned and creaked.
'Not long,' Elyssia said. At last she too had come to realise that they were just not ready to fight the Cobra. They had to get out of here, and fast. The nearest star was six light years distant, their fuel gauge showeda jump capability of four, and rising…