Chapter 1

The air screamed over the leading edge of the front airfoil. The friction caused it to begin glowing orange red and then quickly white-hot in the darkness. James had let just enough atmosphere through the shields to heat the airfoil and provide an ionization trail. "Approach nominal." The droning cadence called out every minute by the helmsman was reassuring.

It amused James to compare it back to the ancient days of the riverboats where at night a deckhand constantly probed the river depth from the front of the ship, "mark one, mark twain, twain and a half, mark three." James was moving considerably faster than any old riverboat and if something went wrong on this approach it would go to hell exponentially faster.

I've got to find a safer occupation, James thought for the thousandth time. But it was all just so much hot air. He could never give up the adrenaline rush he got from blockade running. He considered himself a blockade runner; others called him and his kind smugglers. A bit disingenuous of them he believed. One man's smuggler is another's Hero. Regardless, he only had himself to answer to and he slept like a baby each and every night. Well, at least those nights he slept alone. Too many of those nights, he thought.

"Landing - five minutes. Approach laser locked on. Trajectory nominal." The voice sounded completely human. James had paid a pretty penny at the last retrofit of the guidance system to get the latest upgrades. The Magellan Helmsman 99005^® came complete with "true tonal diphthongs."

"I never met a diphthong that wasn't better if could be true tonal, " James muttered. When the salesman was spouting off on all the features, he actually didn't think he'd give a damn how the stinking thing sounded, but had found that he actually enjoyed talking to the navigator during the long voyages.

"Inertial dampers on full?" He inquired of the main computer.

"Inertial dampers at max, quit joggin' my elbow," was the snotty reply. He made another note to dial-down the personality settings of the interface modules. You can't spank a computer, even if it deserved it.

Up ahead, the coast was fast approaching. James' ship was coming in fast with what looked like a meteoric trajectory. That was intentional. James wanted to look like a meteor. It was a lot healthier if the interdiction platforms believed he was just one of the hundreds of falling chunks of space debris that impacted this planet every year. He was coming in so fast and hot that no reasonable computer would believe he was a ship, let alone a manned ship. The Didgeridoo was equipped with three heavy duty inertial dampers complete with independent power sumps to suck up the energy created when the ship went from unbelievable velocity to zero in a split second.

This better be worth it, he thought. He knew it was. The colonists really needed the medicine he carried. That crazy General on the moon had unleashed some bio-weapons he had under his control following a coup that left him in charge of the moon base. A base that was now looming over the planet below. Attempting to blackmail the planet's government proved to be more difficult than the General had thought and he had released the bio-weapons to force movement on his demands. Over 90% of the population had been wiped out in the ensuing months. James and his ship, the Didgeridoo, held the cure that should stop the military virus in its tracks.

The remaining colonists had contracted with a top Federation lab to formulate and manufacture the cure and now it was his job to get it through the General's blockade. It was his job because he was the best. He was at the top of his game - the most careful, the most ingenious and he had the best equipment. The best equipment of course cost, and cost a lot. His business rates were very high for that same reason. But, since he'd already been paid, this run should be quick. In, drop and run.

The ship followed the approach laser set up by his contact. The likelihood of any interdiction forces detecting the laser was pretty slim. There was little to no light scatter off of the laser path or radiation from the laser source if the colonists had followed his directions. Initial readings showed that they had. Piece of cake.

"Landing zone in sight, downrange, 5 klicks, stand by." James braced himself for the stop. Why he always tensed up was a mystery to him. If the dampers failed or a power sump overloaded he'd either be squashed like a bug on the windshield or blow up so fast he would never know it.

"Down in 3... 2... 1. Dead stop. Inverting inertial dampers." A thud could be heard as the inertial dampers reversed and some of the energy from the abrupt stop was sucked from the power sump and dumped into an energy wave forward. The powerful ship's engines held the ship steady from the inertial blast that was directed down towards the sea. Fountains of ocean water erupted as the wave impacted the water and hit the ocean floor below. Seismic shockwaves rolled through what would have been the impact point of the meteor, had there been one. The ship turned and headed quickly to the nearby shore and their rendezvous site.

"Probe Dropped. Ship down. Securing systems." James let out a breath he had been holding. Not even a bump. He got up and went to the airlock.

The lock cycled open with a whuff of air as the pressure equalized. At the same time he felt a little lighter as the gravity of the ship synched up with the slightly less gravitational pull of the planet. This planet stank. They all did. Something the travel & tourist industry never talked about. Each planet had its own unique smell, never pleasant, and newly arriving visitors anywhere had to get used to the new smells. James ignored it. He knew it would fade into the background in a pretty short time as his nose adjusted. It was hot out too, and humid despite it being night.

He looked into the gloom for his contact. They should be close by as the approach laser was sitting only 10 meters away on its tripod. That and the fact they the ship had already reported the presence of a single IR heat source that was the size and shape of a human. But since he couldn't see in infrared without his combat goggles, he wasn't sure exactly where they were.

"Hello," James called out.

"Over here." A voice from the darkness snapped into life as a hand light stabbed out and caught James standing in the airlock door.