Magnet Omnibus I (Lacuna) Read online

  Contents

  Front Matter

  Legal

  Acknowledgments

  Star Chart

  Magnet

  Title Page

  Blueprint

  Magnet: Special Mission

  Title Page

  Blueprint

  Magnet Saves Christmas

  Title Page

  Blueprint

  Magnet: Marauder

  Title Page

  Blueprint

  Magnet: Scarecrow

  Title Page

  Blueprint

  The Lacunaverse

  Magnet

  Omnibus I

  David Adams

  Copyright © 2014 David Adams

  All rights reserved.

  Print Edition

  Revision 1

  Do not distribute

  (...or if you do, at least give it to someone who'll like it)

  www.lacunaverse.com

  www.facebook.com/Lacunaverse

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A writer does not write in isolation,

  for they are the sum of their experiences.

  It is from these experiences that inspiration comes.

  I thank my family, who allowed me to be who I am,

  My friends, who love me in spite of me,

  And as always, to my readers.

  You made all this possible.

  Special thanks to UFOP: Starbase 118 for teaching me how to write,

  And Shane Michael Murray,

  my tireless proofreader, motivator and partner in crime.

  MAGNET

  Magnet

  "20% of aircraft ejections result in the pilot sustaining career-ending injuries, such as death."

  - Anonymous

  Magnet

  Toralii Mining Colony

  Near the TFR Sydney

  During the events of Lacuna: The Sands of Karathi

  THE SPLINTERING OF GLASS REVERBERATED around the cockpit. The Toralii energy pulse I had somewhat unsuccessfully tried to dodge blew right through my ship’s armour like it was paper. The inside of the canopy turned crimson, blood splattering against my Heads-Up Display as the decompression alarm wailed. Air hissed out the breach in my canopy, sucking the blood splatter towards it and out into the void, a bloody flower blooming right before my eyes.

  The wound didn’t hurt, but I knew it was bad. I hadn’t seen this much blood since the accident.

  It’s the year 2037. My name’s Mike Williams, callsign Magnet. I’m a pilot in the Australian Air/Space Force. Right at this very moment I’m strapped into the pilot’s seat of a SSF-01 Wasp with a hole in it.

  “Magnet’s hit, Magnet’s hit.”

  The voice of my wingman, Viper, came through on my radio. I turned my head to orientate myself with my mothership, the Sydney, and with a faint squeal of static Viper’s voice inexplicably cut out. I was alone, floating in the darkness, my spaceship venting atmosphere and my blood pouring out all over space. My radar, one of the few functional systems I had left, showed three red dots break off from the main furball and swing towards my ship. The Toralii were coming to finish me off.

  Dying was going to really mess up my day.

  My fellow pilots call me Magnet, short for Chick Magnet, good old-fashioned military humour at its finest. I’m a pilot in the Australian Air/Space Force, working with Task Force Resolution.

  We’d been given the task of assaulting a mining colony. It was thought there might be human prisoners there. The Tehran had gone missing and there was a good chance the Toralii were using its crew as slave labour. It was thought that the colony would be unprepared and lightly defended.

  The moment the Sydney appeared in the Lagrange point near the Toralii mining colony we attacked, capitalising on the element of surprise. Our Wasps shot out from the Sydney’s launch tubes, banking and turning down towards the colony. They had an active patrol up and we flew straight towards them, hungry sharks who scented blood. I got an early lock, letting off two missiles the moment I had good tone. We always ripple fired. They called them miss-iles, not hit-iles, and we wanted to make sure we hit our target.

  Both missiles went straight in, striking the centre of the Toralii bird in quick succession, causing the ship to burst into a bright pinprick of light against the backdrop of space. A pretty good showing for my first day out. Space was clear to the colony.

  All had gone to plan so far. We covered the Sydney’s Broadsword gunship as they began extracting the prisoners, getting in close enough to receive defensive fire from the surface. It was random and light until the Toralii launched a full wing of their own birds. I had to tell you, then I was pretty excited. Blowing up a patrol who’d never seen you coming was one thing, but this was the first time I was going head to head with the Toralii in open space.

  I primed another missile to shoot, locking onto one of the ships near the edges of the Toralii formation. I saw the flashes of their energy weapons, silent balls of death leaping straight towards us, but I focused on getting my second kill of the day.

  Then one of the little balls hit my cockpit dead on and things went downhill pretty quick.

  Eject, Eject, Eject flashed the HUD, the wail of alarms drowning out the hiss of escaping air, but I knew better. With this much blood my suit had to have been holed so I’d be a goner minutes after I bailed out. The ship had more oxygen than my suit and I had lost so much. At this point every kilo mattered. The only thing to do was to stay in my bird, try to get back to the Sydney if I could or go down fighting if I couldn’t.

  I reached up and fumbled for the distress signaller, jamming it to the on position. The red LED in the corner of the cockpit which indicated duress lit up just as it was supposed to. Too bright, actually, much lighter than the rest of my instruments. I frowned. What the hell was the designer thinking, putting in a bulb so bright? As if the pilot somehow wasn’t already aware he was royally fucked.

  The Toralii were coming for me. I needed to fly. I gently pressed my foot to the rudder, hoping the horizontal stabilisers were still active. Nothing.

  “Come on you bastard, come back to me.” Switching on the redundant systems I struggled with the control column. I felt light headed and confused, the stars spinning around me. Where was the ship? Where were the Toralii?

  Somehow, as though reading my mind, the fighter levelled out. A swift glance at my radio revealed it was still working. The cord leading from my headset to the instrument dashboard had come loose, probably when I twisted my head. I jammed it back into its socket, smearing blood all over the instrument panel.

  “-agnet, I say again, eject. You’re leaking atmosphere and you have incoming.”

  “Sydney, this is Vulture—we’ve lost Magnet, can’t raise him on comms. Initiate SAR, he’s drifted well outside of the combat zone so should be retrievable. Be advised, two contacts are eyeballing him.”

  I squeezed the talk key. “Calm the fuck down, I’m here. And it’s three. Three contacts coming to my place. Party hard.” I used the vertical stabilisers to level my wings to the Sydney’s orientation.

  Shaba laughed into my headset. She was the pilot of our Search and Rescue Broadsword Piggyback. Shaba was Hebrew for Ghost and she’d named her Search and Rescue Broadsword herself.

  Piggyback... because it saved your bacon.

  “Magnet, this is Piggyback. Request update on SAR mission. How you holding up there, hot stuff?”

  I craned my head, trying to see where I’d been wounded. I still felt no pain although blood continued to trickle into my cockpit. “Update as follows; I fucking ate a round, there’s blood all over the cockpit. Break.” I depressed the rudder-pedal again to no effect. “But I feel fine.”

  The ship jerked,
finally responding to my push on the rudder-pedal. Normally the Wasp’s a zippy little space fighter, an arrow with stubby little wings, wings which really just serve as mounts for the reaction control system and as hard-points to mount missiles. Of course, wings in space don’t do anything much, although their weight does steady the craft slightly, and the reaction control system that allows us to do fine manoeuvring requires them. Not that I was doing any manoeuvring at this particular moment.

  Shaba’s tone became serious, the levity evaporating in a heartbeat. “Blood? Is your suit breached?”

  “Are you fucking high? I said there’s blood, there’s a hole somewhere.” Wasn’t she supposed to be a medic? “I’m guessing it missed my chest, since I can breathe fine, but I can’t feel the wound anywhere. Could be in my abdomen, though, or my leg, or the arse.”

  Shot in the arse. If I didn’t die, I’d be a laughing stock for the rest of my flying days. Might even earn a new callsign. Something butt-focused.

  “You know protocol. Sit tight, we’re coming to get you. Piggyback is away.”

  The last thing I needed was search and rescue coming to cart my sorry arse away on my very first engagement in space. I’d probably never live it down.

  Carefully firing the horizontal thrusters I swung my nose back towards the action. I wanted my guns on those fighters. In the distance I could see the rest of the engagement: Toralii fighters and Wasps darted around each-other, stinging and flying away, with the larger and less manoeuvrable Broadswords just sitting still and spitting cannon fire in all directions.

  The three Toralii strike fighters drew close enough for me to shoot. I knew I had to hit them hard with a prolonged burst. The reporting name for this class of fighter was Badger, because they were squat and tough but packed a hell of a fight.

  Shaba spoke again. “Magnet, Piggyback. We’re interdicting three bandits coming in at your twelve o’clock high. They’re too far away for us to hit yet.”

  “I’ve still got two missiles. Break.” I tagged the lead fighter on my radar screen and tried to acquire tone, but the glass display of the missile targeting system was black and silent. “Belay that, missiles are inoperative.”

  “Copy. Engage defensive until we get there and go to guns.”

  I couldn’t dodge forever, especially with my flight systems being uncooperative, and I hadn’t a hope of lining up my guns. It was time to call for help of a different kind. I rotated channels. “Sydney, Magnet. Request fire mission, grid six alpha-romeo. Three bandits, dispersion four hundred metres.”

  The briefest of pauses. “Magnet, Sydney; confirmed. Fire mission, grid six alpha-romeo. Medium range bombardment, four hundred metre dispersion, explosive anti-fighter shells. Firing for effect.”

  “Confirm, Sydney. Bring the rain.”

  I held the nose of my Wasp straight, watching the three Toralii dots draw close. I glanced up at the Sydney, watching the little twinkles of her autocannons open up. Highlighted by the bright flashes I could see the dark speck that was Piggyback racing towards me.

  One of the Sydney’s high explosive shells soared right past me and exploded, silently blasting a wave of shrapnel in every direction, the shards of metal pinking off my hull. Then another and another.

  “Sydney! God fucking damnit, you’re firing into the wrong grid! Cease fire, cease fire!”

  I savagely jammed the throttle as far open as it would go. The reactionless drive whined in protest, my fighter jerking forward and down, diving out of the effect of my own ship’s barrage. Shrapnel bounced off my hull, a dull sound like summer rain on a tin roof.

  “Magnet, Sydney. Uh, say again.”

  I gripped the talk key so hard I thought I’d break it. Shells burst silently all around me, little mushrooms of fire in space, blasting waves of shrapnel in every direction.

  “You mother fuckers are shooting at me! Cease mother-fucking-fire!”

  I kicked out at the left rudder-pedal, jamming the ship into a wild twist. One of the Sydney’s shells soared by so close that I could almost read the serial number, disappearing below me and exploded, shredding the underside of the ship. This whole section was being bombarded by my own ship and I had nowhere to go.

  Slowly, the fire petered off. “Magnet, Sydney. Ceasefire confirmed. These things happen.”

  These things happen? I wanted to reach out through the vast gulf of space and throttle the man who’d nearly killed me. Before I could unleash an entirely inappropriate stream of comments through my radio, however, the three Toralii warbirds descended on me like hawks to an exposed mouse. My flight from the Sydney’s barrage had given me momentum, so their shots flew wide, but the end was coming.

  “Piggyback? If you’re out there, I could use some help right about, oh, ten seconds ago!”

  I jammed the control stick to the right, grunting as my tiny ship lurched and twisted, barely avoiding a second spray of fire from the Toralii fighters. They overshot, zooming past me silently like owls on the hunt, and I pulled back the handle that governed the speed of the reactionless drive, jamming the fighter into reverse.

  The engine spluttered, jerked twice, then died. A low groan reverberated throughout the ship as the system gave up the ghost completely.

  Well, shit.

  “Piggyback, this is Magnet – my reactionless drive is out. I’m dead in space.” Pardon the pun, I silently added, instantly regretting it. In the game of space combat words had a tendency to come back with an ironic bite.

  I twisted in my seat, looking over my shoulder. I saw three brief flashes as the light of the system’s star reflected off the glass cockpits of the three Toralii fighters. They were turning towards me, bearing down to deliver the coup de grace.

  I was presented with an interesting but morbid choice. Remain where I was and get blown to atoms, or eject and asphyxiate in space. I didn’t have a lot of time to think about it and the training hammered into me by endless repetition took over.

  It was one of the things that really stuck with me in flight school. The number one reason for ejection failure was hesitation. Pilots who were unwilling to accept that they’d lost and believing, hopelessly, that they could turn the tide if they just stayed on a little bit longer.

  There was no prize for second place in space combat. First prize was a relaxing flight home for tea and medals, where your nation’s leaders pin shiny metal crosses on your chest on national television and people called you a hero for the rest of your life.

  Second prize was also a cross, made of stone and placed at the head of your grave.

  I waited until the flashes of the Toralii’s energy weapons against the black background of space then I reached between my legs and yanked the ejection handle.

  Ejection was a very strange feeling, especially in zero gravity. The moment I pulled the yellow and black striped handle the Martin-Baker Mk. 19B ejection seat went to work.

  The first stage was to remove the canopy, a stage I remembered viewing in slow motion. Tiny rockets mounted under the cockpit glass blasted the whole canopy free in one piece, with forward facing thrusters blasting it up and away from my ship. With the cockpit suddenly exposed to vacuum all the air was sucked out in one big woomph, taking various pieces of debris, blood and loose items with it. Mingling with the sparks left behind by the rockets I saw a few specific things – a stray coin, a condom wrapper, the business card of that fine hooker I met in Brisbane and tiny, perfectly spherical droplets of blood all blown out of the canopy as the atmosphere vacated it.

  The second stage, milliseconds after the first, was the part which saved my life. Because there’s no atmosphere anymore there was no sound except the faint hiss of air inside the suit. Little cables attached to each one of my limbs pulled taut, jamming my arms in against my chest, my legs in against the seat and my head against the back of the chair. Heavy-duty rockets ignited under my seat, hurtling me out of the cockpit.

  Perhaps it was the wound, or my brain suddenly having fourteen times Earth’s gravity e
xerted upon it, but I couldn’t remember much after that except a crushing force jamming me down into the seat, blasting me across space. I had very few points of reference amongst the unmoving stars. Aside from the pressure cramming me back into my seat I really had no sense of motion once I was clear of my stricken craft.

  The doomed wreckage of my ship blew up below me as the Toralii energy blasts struck the fuel and ammunition reserves. The shockwave had not quite dissipating when it caught up to the back of my seat, the remaining force enough to shake and rattle the chair, twisting it completely around right as the rockets died.

  Carried by its inertia the chair spun on its horizontal axis. It continued to turn, the stars slowly tumbling by. I caught flashes of weapons fire, and through my limited perspective Piggyback flying into the fray, its cannons ablaze as it fought off my attackers to save my sorry arse.

  The cables loosened their grip and I jerked my legs from side to side, trying to stop the spinning. Eventually I worked the seat to something approximating stable. I could hear nothing but my own laboured breathing and the faint whine of escaping air. I watched a mute battle from afar, Piggyback firing its weapons in every direction as the three Toralii warbirds stung at its thick hide. I didn’t see them get hit, but knew if they did, the Broadsword was strong enough to tough it out.

  I saw a missile escape Piggyback’s missile rack, a thin wispy trail following it as it flew past its target, detonating nearby. Not a killing blow. The Badger fought on.