An Honest Trade: The Smuggler's Tale
Chapter 1There are many different ways to repair a spaceship. If you're rich, you hire a mechanic and if you're poor, you do it yourself.
But Omad Zipphah didn't have the time for either of these two options as he ran into the cockpit of his "modified" freighter The Honey and started the engines. A familiar whine filled the cabin, then died again as the sublight drive protested the rough treatment, but a good thump perked it up and without even taking time to activate the repulsorlifts, Omad lifted off.
The few troopers who had been unlucky enough to follow him into the bay were fried in his engine wash, and though their colleagues let loose with hand blasters, he was soon out of their range. He wheeled round, heading for the edge of the planetary shield and went to check on his co-pilot, a Devish called Sumatra, who had been hit on the leg with a blaster at their last stop and had been resting in her cabin.
"Hey, what was all that about sweetheart?" she asked as he came in.
"I had a little, uh, disagreement with the port guards about our cargo and they didn't want to let me take off. And don't call me sweetheart! I'm not a kid!"
"Just as you say sweetheart," she replied. "But didn't I hear Honey's engines almost giving up back then? I think you'll have to see to that soon or the casing will crack and you'll have to get it replaced. Sweetheart."
"Why didn't that blaster get your tongue?" he muttered as he headed back to the cockpit.
He scanned his displays and saw with alarm that the sublight engines were only at 30% of their peak efficiency. At that rate, we'll never make it past the shield before they launch their security fighters, he thought to himself.
"Sumatra!" he called. "You'll have to come through and take control while I go back to try and fix the engines." A minute later she was through, with a large bandage tied tightly round her wound and a rather tight face, but she sat down in her chair and made a few adjustments to the speed and height of the ship. " There." she said. " That'll stop it blowing up in your face, but you'd better be quick. There'll be Z-95s everywhere in a minute, and while security aren't exactly crack shots, even they can't miss at point
blank range."
"It's OK. I'm hurrying!" he yelled over his shoulder as he left the cockpit.
He had about 5 minutes to repair the engines and, while Sumatra was a good pilot, he knew she couldn't fly and shoot by remote at the same time.
He rushed down the passage to the cargo hold and ran a quick diagnostic on the sublight drive. It was as he had feared. There was a puncture in the coolant pipe and the ship had automatically closed off the damaged section but with not enough coolant the engine was overheating fast and there was no way he could get in there to fix it.
He flicked on the com and said "Sumatra? The coolant has cut off and the engine's already too hot for me to fix it. Plot a course for a deserted bit of space near here and have us all set to go to lightspeed as soon as we clear the planet. OK? I'm on my way back up."
He sprinted back up the corridor to the cockpit and slid into his seat. She already had the guns and the shields powering up and as he checked the co-ordinates she had set, she said "6 Z-95s coming up at 5 o'clock. Get ready for some fancy flying."
A voice came over the com. "Freighter Honey, you are unauthorised to leave. Please turn round and return to Zeggate or we will take offensive action. De-activation of your com will be construed as unwillingness to comply."
"Stuff you!" Omad muttered as he switched off the com. "We outgun you and we can outfly you but unfortunately you outnumber us. Well, I like a challenge. "
"Only if you come out of it alive, flyboy," Sumatra said seriously "and I wouldn't place any bets on this one."
He didn't reply, as at that moment two Z-95s dived at him, wingtip lasers blazing. He got off a few stray shots but the little snubfighters got away, and Honey's shields had taken quite a battering.
"You know," he said "If we want to get any I'll have to go up to the laser turret and shoot from there. The slave-shooting controls aren't great on this ship and we don't have so much power that we can afford to miss." He executed a complicated corkscrew manoeuvre and looped up and around his attackers before jumping out of his seat and running up to the gun turret.
He switched on the com and found the targeting controls and while he waited for the guns to warm up, he asked his co-pilot if she could handle flying the ship by herself. A furious voice came back over the com, saying "I don't know about you, flyboy, but I could fly this ship with one arm tied behind my back, and if you think..." she trailed off as his laughter told her she was being wound up.
He was rewarded with a particularly foul Devaronian curse. Sumatra hated being laughed at.
He had to give her credit though. As she raged at him, she had flipped Honey into a spin on
her horizontal axis, brought the ship over the Zeggate patrol ships and gone down through the centre
of them, giving him a clear shot into the group. He squeezed off a few shots and was rewarded with the sight of the port engine on the nearest Z-95 going up in flames. It turned round to go home, no longer any use in a fight.
"One down, five to go." Sumatra said. "Good shooting hot-shot!"
"Thanks. How close are we to the edge of the shield?"
"Not close enough. About 30km away actually."
"Well, if we can hold them off for a few more minutes, we'll at least be in space and Zeggate
doesn't have that big a gravity well. We'll make it."
"I hope so," Sumatra sighed. "I'm getting tired of fighting"
The Honey came round for another pass and Omad managed to blow up the lead Z-95, which took its wingman with it in a cloud of flames. The others seemed rather lost and he guessed that one of those two had been the leader. Taking advantage of the slight confusion, Sumatra accelerated towards the edge of the planetary shield, but the Z-95s weren't that stupid. They reformed in a wedge shape and gave pursuit.
He aimed at the rightmost fighter, but missed, and the centre one in return fired a steady round of shots into the shield.
"How're the shields holding up Sumatra?" Omad yelled.
"You don't want to know!"
He looked at the three ships in front of him and aimed carefully at the weakest looking one, on the left hand side and poured laser fire into its shields. It didn't stand a chance. It exploded in a beautiful ball of fire, which seemed to disconcert the other two and they began to retreat.
"Yee -ha!! How about that?" Omad shouted down to his co-pilot.
"Great, honey, don't get on top of yourself! And look behind you."
Omad turned round and saw the two Z-95s coming straight for him, not retreating at all!
He grabbed the handholds and shot at them, but his aim was skewed and they were both unhurt.
"Hey Sumatra! How far are we from the edge?" he said into the com.
"'Bout 10 km."
"By the Empire!" Omad swore "Is she going that slowly?
"No, Bantha brain! In the other direction. We're swinging out towards space now."
"Thank the stars for that!" he said in relief. How long till we're clear of the gravity well?"
"Not too long. About five minutes or so. See if you can't knock out those two following us while you're at it."
"Doing it already."
"I'll try and give you a better shot."
He tracked the left-hand fighter with the cannon, but all the time keeping an eye on the right hand one, and sent a couple of deliberately wide shots at it. Then he suddenly swung round and, with the flick of a switch, sent several rounds of linked fire into the right hand one's shields. The other one chose his moment of jubilation as it exploded to come spiralling in, hitting the ship again and again with deadly accuracy. But Sumatra was equal to the challenge. Throwing the Honey into a stomach churning loop, she arced up and round behind the last Z-95, giving Omad a brilliant shot at it.
Unfortunately, he missed, and the small ship looped round for another pass, using a complicated corkscrew manoeuvre that was very hard to track. "Why do the best always get left till last?" Omad muttered, "I hate it when that happens."
"Oh bantha dung!" he added as a couple of shots wiped out the top shields.
He growled at it an ancient Rodian curse that meant something like: "Okay, you piece of Hutt slime. This means war!" then grabbed the gun and sent a hail of laser bolts around the fighter, fencing it in. "Sumatra! Arm the proton torpedoes and link them to the quad laser firing controls. Fast!"
"Okay Omad. All ready."
He pin pointed the little fighter in his targeting box, and fired the torpedoes. It wasn't expecting a
ship as pathetic looking as the Honey to have missiles and it didn't know what hit it. Omad took great
satisfaction from seeing it going up in flames, but he didn't wait around to gloat.
"Sumatra! Get us out of here!" he shouted down the com. "Wouldn't want to be here when their
friends arrive, now would we?"
"Shut up!" she yelled back as she accelerated prior to going into lightspeed.
Soon, the familiar pattern of starlines blossomed in the view screen, and they both relaxed.