                               ELITE PASSWORDS.

     Typed in by MAURIE. Edited by Parasite.


     Page        Paragraph   Line        Word

      6          1           1           1        WELCOME
      6          1           4           4        WHOSE
      7          1           1           3        PULSE
      7          4           1           4        FILLS
      7          5           1           1        THE
      8          1           1           2        DRIVE
      8          2           3           1        BUNKS
      8          3           2           4        BANKS
      9          1           4           2        YELLOW
      9          3           1           1        THE
      9          3           1           2        RATING
     14          3           4           2        FOR
     14          3           4           4        FAVOURABLE
     15          1           1           5        RETURN
     15          2           3           2        HYPERSPACE
     15          2           3           3        FUEL
     16          1           1           2        WORLD
     16          2           3           3        THE
     17          1           1           1        ON
     17          1           1           3        FOR
     22          1           2           1        UNLESS
     22          2           1           1        LOCATE
     25          1           5           1        OUTRUN
     25          2           1           1        IF
     25          2           2           3        CANNOT
     27          1           1           2        ARE
     27          1           2           2        PIRATE
     27          2           1           1        SMALL
     27          2           1           2        SHIPS
     29          1           5           3        FOR
     29          2           1           4        BATTLE
     29          2           2           4        KILLER-CRAFT
     30          1           1           1        BEFORE
     30          1           1           2        THE
     30          1           4           2        OF
     30          2           1           5        ARE
     33          1           2           1        MISSILE
     33          2           1           1        PRESSING
     33          3           2           1        WILL
     33          3           2           4        SEQUENCE
     34          2           2           7        SHIP
     34          4           1           1        AN
     35          1           1           2        SHIELD
     35          2           3           2        ANY
     37          2           4           1        PRESSING
     46          1           1           5        VARIABLE
====================================================================== 
                                 ELITE    



                   SPACE TRADERS FLIGHT TRAINING MANUAL


CONTENTS

1.  Introductory Data ...........................................  2

2.  Navigation and Flying .......................................  4

     Flying and Navigation Controls 
     Leaving the Space Station                                      
     Making for Your Target World 
     Travelling to Other Galaxies 
     Docking Procedure                                              

3.  Interplanetary Travel ....................................... 10

     In-Flight Combat:
          Controls and Tactics 
          Likely Enemies                                         

     Equipping the Cobra Mk III:
          Weaponry and Non-Combative Equipment 
          How to Buy Equipment for Your Ship                     

4.  Intergalactic Trading ....................................... 18

     How to Trade 
     Piracy                                                      
     Bounty Hunting 

5.  Political Profile of the Universe ........................... 22

     Consequences for Trade 
     Alien Races 

6.  Observer's Guide to Ships in Service ........................ 25

7.  Pilot's Log ................................................. 35
















                                   - 1 -






                             INTRODUCTORY DATA

Welcome aboard this Cobra Mk III trading and combat craft.   The  ship  has 
been supplied to you by Faulcon deLacy Spaceways,  by arrangement with  the 
Galactic Co-operative of Worlds whose Space and Interstellar Pilot's  Exams 
you  have just successfully completed.   The small flight  manual  supplied 
with  the  craft is designed to familiarize you with all aspects  of  space 
flight, combat and trading, and we hope that it will be of use to you.

You  begin  your career,  your ship equipped with a  single  forward-firing 
pulse laser,  3 homing missiles,  7 light years of fuel, and the sum of 100 
Credits  (CR),  ready  to embark from a space station in orbit  around  the 
planet Lave.

The Cobra Mk III is the best of the medium-range,  medium capacity fighter-
traders,  and  is  an ideal ship for new traders intent on  building  their 
fortunes, or new combateers who will constantly need to finance the cost of 
both armaments and non-combative equipment.

The  ship  is  highly maneuverable,  has a  good  C-holding  factor  during 
hyperspace transit,  can hold sufficient Quirium H-fuel for a  7-light-year 
single  jump  and  has  full Auto Trading Systems Link  for  use  at  space 
stations.   Further,  it  is  protected by Dual  Zieman  Energy  Deflection 
Shields,  powered by 4 energy banks,  and has a powerful,  rapid-fire pulse 
laser mounted on the forward hull segment.  Flight controls and elegant and 
simple, and ThruSpace GravDistort communications systems.  Its life support 
functions are varied and flexible to ensure maximum comfort during  trading 
or hunting operations.

Pilot  licences  are  issued only at the planet Lave,  and  it  is  likely, 
therefore,  that  you are now docked at a Coriolis station in orbit  around 
that particular world.  Lave is a rich, agricultural dictatorship, but is a 
reasonably  safe world at which to begin your endeavors.   GalCop  and  the 
Lave  Authorities  allow practice docking and departure runs to  all  their 
space  stations here,  and you would be advised to take advantage  of  this 
facility.

INTERIOR OF A COBRA MK III

The Cobra is essentially a single-pilot trade-ship,  but has been  designed 
to  support a second person,  provided that person is of ordinary human  or 
humanoid dimensions and physiology.   The ship itself consists of five main 
areas:

THE  CARGO  HOLD fills the bulk of the mid-space area,  and the  cargo  bay 
doors  open downwards.   The capacity in an unmodified Cobra is 20  1-tonne 
canisters.   Extra cargo space may be acquired by extending the cargo  bay, 
which  does  not  affect  maneuverability.   Tonne  canisters  (TC)  attach 
magnetically  to the cargo arms within the bay,  and 2 AutoShuttles  occupy 
the central space.

THE BRIDGE has seats for pilot and co-pilot,  a MedStim Center, entrance to 
the escape pod,  descent well to living quarters,  communications  console, 
special  suit  locker,  RemLock  supply  case,  attachment  facilities  for 
AutoDock  System and a hand-weapons locker.   The main wall is occupied  by 
the scanner screen, astrogation console and main systems monitors.



                                   - 2 -






THE  DRIVE SECTOR houses the directional thrusts,  the System Space  Kruger 
"lightfast" motors,  and the Irrikon Thru-Space drives.   Also here are the 
rear laser housings,  the ECM capsule,  the Zieman shield  generators,  and 
energy  banks,  and the Witch-Space fuel condensors (Quirium).   There  are 
both internal and external access panels.  Radiation level is high.

THE  LIVING  AND  HYGIENE SECTION is below the  main  bridge,  and  reached 
through a descending gravity well.   Two bunks, food dispensing facilities, 
waste disposal (including high-tox copper exudate for Aonians), SynPleasure 
relaxapads, and videos.

THE EQUIPMENT LEVEL runs throughout the ship,  and houses all energy  banks 
for lasers, plus the missile rests, with dispatch shafts to the lower hull.  
The  communications  center is here,  and the escape pod (with  a  separate 
entrance from the bridge) life support systems,  cryogen tanks (two) and 40 
cubic meters of FacsEnvironment for emergency use.

THE STATUS PAGE

The  "Present  System" refers to the planetary system which  your  ship  is 
currently in; while the "Hyperspace system" refers to the system onto which 
the hyperspace is locked.

There are 4 possible "Conditions":   DOCKED means that you are docked in  a 
space station at the Present System; GREEN means that there is no immediate 
danger; YELLOW indicates enemy ships in the vicinity; Condition RED signals 
a high-risk on-going death-type combat situation.

"Legal Status" refers to your Galactic Police record.  If this is CLEAN you 
have nothing to worry about, but as an OFFENDER or, still worse, a FUGITIVE 
you are likely to be attacked by police ships.

The "Rating" is a dispassionate assessment of your performance in combat so 
far.

Current  cash  and  fuel are also displayed,  along with  a  list  of  ship 
fittings.

The status page is always retrievable by pressing F9.

YOUR RATING AS A COMBATEER

To  become  an  elite combateer requires great skill  and  great  patience, 
because  expert  trading is essential before the  necessary  more  powerful 
armaments  and equipment available to the Cobra ship can  be  bought:  beam 
lasers,   more  missiles,   energy  bombs,  a  docking  computer,  galactic 
hyperdrive, etc.

As  you sail through space between the stars,  and as you trade,  you  will 
live with your combat rating.   You will begin as HARMLESS.  If you survive 
your first skirmish you may be reclassified as MOSTLY HARMLESS.  But on the 
slow climb to a status level that reflects a growing talent for combat  you 
will have to engage many different ships,  in many different skirmishes, in 
the System Space of many different worlds.  You will be classified as POOR, 
then AVERAGE,  then ABOVE AVERAGE,  then COMPETENT.   Then you will  become 
DANGEROUS, then DEADLY.  An at last, a few will become ELITE.



                                   - 3 -






Your kills are photographed and transmitted by TS ComDirect to the  nearest 
GalCop  Federal Law Center.   Your rating as a combateer will  increase  in 
direct proportion.

Fly your Cobra craft wisely and carefully.   Remember:  other pilots may be 
attempting to increase their own combat rating by attacking either innocent 
traders,  or police Vipers (the ships of the GalCop Police Force).   If you 
resort to such tactics (or if your adopt the fast-credit routine and  trade 
in illegal goods) then your combat rating may rise,  but your legal status: 
CLEAN -> OFFENDER -> FUGITIVE,  will make you Public Enemy Number One  with 
the Federation Crime Monitoring Authority and you will not be left alone.

---------------------
KEY FUNCTION - STATUS

  F9 - Status page accessed by pressing F9.


                           NAVIGATION AND FLYING

NAVIGATION

The  Galactic Co-operative is only one - although the largest - of  several 
planetary federations,  and maintains trade and diplomatic links with  over 
2000  planets  spread throughout 8 galaxies.   The political profile  of  a 
planet is an important navigational consideration as many are in a state of 
anarchy and are unsafe to visit in poorly equipped ships.  Important too is 
its economic profile, as will be discussed in the section about trading.

Navigational  strategy depends of course upon your aims in  life.   If  you 
think you have what it take sot become elite,  you will need to chart  your 
path through the galaxies with care and great precision.   You will wish to 
equip your ship as fully and as early as possible.   You  will,  therefore, 
need to study the trading section of this manual so that you can work out a 
profitable  trading  route in order to be able to afford the  weaponry  you 
will require.   You will wish to lead;  in general, the more risks you take 
(travelling  to  dangerous planets or trading  in  contraband  goods),  the 
faster  you may equip your ship but the quicker you will  be  killed.   You 
will  discover that life in the 8 galaxies is a question of  fine  balance.  
Although  it  may seem,  at first,  that indiscriminate carnage is  a  soft 
option  (kills  improve  your  rating,  after  all),  as  your  skills  and 
experience of living in space mature, you will quickly discover that piracy 
is a short-lived career.

Success in this context is a mosaic of talents:  combative,  certainly, buy 
thinking and decision-making talents too.

Here you are introduced to all the controls which will eventually be useful 
to you in developing a route through the 8 galaxies.

NAVIGATIONAL CONTROLS

It is important that you do not press the F1 key for the moment.

GALACTIC  CHART (F5).   This chart shows all registered worlds  within  the 
galaxy, and indicates your own coordinate position.  The star cursor may be 
used to scan the shown worlds for potentially favorable trade sites.


                                   - 4 -






Use the joystick,  mouse or cursor keys to move the small cross over to one 
of the dots, and hit F7.

WORLDATA LINK.   The Orbit Space Authority takes no responsibility for  the 
accuracy of the information registered here,  but the trader may gain  some 
idea  of  the  relative  wisdom of trading with the  world  whose  data  is 
displayed.   The  information shown is distance,  type of main  life  form, 
degree  of  agricultural or industrial  development,  with  industrial  and 
technological  level displayed on a scale of 1-12.   The  government  type, 
ranging from Corporate State to Anarchy, will be a strong indication of the 
danger of trading with the system.

Use F5 again to return to the chart and acquire information about some more 
planets.

The  larger  of the crosses on the chart shows where your ship is  and  the 
circle shows how far it can jump with its current hyperspace fuel.

Hit B key to return the small cross to the larger one.

LOCAL NAVIGATION CHART (F6).   This is a high power chart of all planets in 
the immediate vicinity of your docking world.   Since the Cobra ship has  a 
maximum  single  H-jump range of 7 light years,  the target world  must  be 
chosen carefully.  The target cursor, used in conjunction with the Worldata 
link, will indicate dangerous or likely worlds for trade.

If the cross moves off the screen,  use the B key to bring it back.  Notice 
also that the D key will tell you how far away the system nearest the small 
cross is.

--------------------------
KEY FUNCTIONS - NAVIGATION

   F5 - Galactic chart
   F6 - Local chart
   D  - Distance to system
   B  - Retrieve cursor cross
   F7 - Data on system
   Cursor keys - Cross-sight cursor for local and galactic systems


A CORIOLIS SPACE STATION

Every world registered with the Galactic Co-operative has several  Coriolis 
space  stations  in  orbit at various  altitudes.   Coriolis  stations  are 
"neutral"  territory,  controlled  equally  by  GalCop  and  the  Planetary 
Government.

A new dodecahedral design (the so-called "Dodo" stations) is replacing  the 
Coriolis  design  in  the more advanced  systems.   Coriolis  stations  are 
hexagonal  in  approximate shape.   They spin along a single  axis  running 
vertically from the planet below.  One side of the station always faces the 
planet, and it is on this facet that the access tunnel is located.






                                   - 5 -






Coriolis  stations  were designed at the GASEC  (Galactic  Astronautic  and 
Space Exploration Center) Laboratories on the planet Vetitice.   The  first 
station was in orbit around the world Lave in 2752.

Coriolis  stations have powerful defensive shields (against  pirate  attack 
and inept docking) and a large fleet of Viper fighters,  and several larger 
types of ship.   The inside of the station is free-space, and on each inner 
facet of the station there are berthing and refueling  facilities,  as well 
as cities, hospitals, farmlands and leisure-scapes.

Each  Coriolis station has a diameter of 1 standard  kilometer.   They  can 
berth  2000 ships,  and support a fair-sized colonial life  development  of 
humanoids.

LEAVING THE SPACE STATION  (F1)

On  coding  for Station Depart the pilot is advised to accept  a  10-second 
MemnSomn to dispense with subjective experience of the passage from docking 
bay to Coriolis station egress.  The screen will then show a break-pattern, 
which  is  the  passage  through the protective  field  over  the  Coriolis 
entrance tunnel.

BASIC MANEUVERS

The  Cobra  trade  ship needs practice to fly well,  though  it  is  highly 
maneuverable,  very  fast,  and a good combat vessel.   It accelerates  and 
decelerates rapidly using fingertip control:

     Anticlockwise roll         <, joystick or mouse left
     Clockwise roll             >, joystick or mouse right
     Dive                       S, joystick or mouse forward
     Climb                      X, joystick or mouse back
     Increase speed             SPACE or hold right mouse button 
                                   then forward
     Decrease speed             / (slash) or hold right mouse button down
                                   then back one
     Cancel roll                press on right mouse button

Pitch and yaw maneuver requires bi-digital play on keyboard model (<,>,S,X)

Notice  the small dot moving around inside the large circle on  the  dials.  
This  is  your compass;  the dot corresponds to the position of  the  space 
station.  If the dot is small then the station is behind you.  When the dot 
is  large and in the center of the circle,  you should be able to  see  the 
space station directly in front of you.

Practice rotating the space station off the screen and using the compass to 
find it again.

You  might  see  some Cobra Class ships.   These  are  other  traders  like 
yourself,  and will not harm you unless you shoot at them.   If you do this 
they will either attack or,  alternatively,  run away.  Should you use them 
for combat practice, do not expect the space station to turn a blind eye to 
such unruly behavior.   Nothing will attack you while you are within  sight 
of the space station - unless you make a nuisance of yourself.




                                   - 6 -






It is not possible to land on the planet,  and flying into planets or space 
stations  is  fatal.   The altimeter shows your height above  the  planet's 
surface, and you should not let it fall too low.

(If  you  are  a new pilot,  now is your best chance  to  practice  docking 
maneuvers with the space station at Lave.   The Lave Orbit Space  Authority 
permits an unlimited number of practice runs by newly appointed pilots, and 
does  not charge.   This facility is suspended during attack,  or when  the 
Coriolis station has no free docking space.

CONSOLE READINGS

(bars to the left of the flight grid scanner)

1.  (FU)  Fuel level.

2.   (CT)   Cabin temperature will increase and the console  register  this 
when your ship flies too close to a sun.

3.   (AL)   Altimeter.   You altitude above your destination planet can  be 
crucial.  Flying too near its surface will be fatal.

(flight grid scanner)

4.  (x1 - upper left corner of scanner)  Radar Magnification.

5.  (S)  S refers to the space station and indicates that you are on target 
for it and within its protective range.

6.   Compass (upper right corner of scanner).   This instrument first picks 
up  a target planet while it remains out of range of the  main  flight-path 
scanner.  When the planet's space station nearest to you comes within range 
of  it,  the compass picks up that instead.   When the dot  is  small,  the 
object is behind you;  when large and in the center of the compass  circle, 
it should be visible through your front viewfinder.

7.   Flight grid scanner.   This sophisticated instrument displays a three-
dimensional view of space in the immediate vicinity of your ship, seen from 
a point behind and above it.   The precise position of any ship within  its 
range can be pinpointed.

(bars to the right of the flight grid scanner)

8.   (SP)   Forward velocity should be maintained at maximum  on  planetary 
approach.  Keep it low during space station approach, and minimal for final 
docking.

9.   (RL and DC)  Gyro orient bar indicators show right/left roll and dive/ 
climb status.










                                   - 7 -






MAKING FOR YOUR TARGET WORLD

     Hyperspace and Related Controls

Having  left  the space station you will be in low orbit above  the  planet 
Lave,  moving at low velocity.   Decrease your velocity to absolute minimum 
before coding the astrogation console for Hyperspace Jump.

During space flight only,  F1,  F2,  F3, and F4 provide access to views all 
around your ship.

Use F5 or F6 to display a chart (galactic or local, respectively), and move 
the smaller cross to choose a larger planet, press F1, then hit H.  After a 
short delay, the hyperjump motors will engage.

On arrival in a new planetary system,  after transit from  hyperspace,  you 
will find yourself at some distance from your target world.   This conforms 
with GC Flight Law.

Even  in the safest systems there can be unseen dangers,  and you  will  be 
well advised to approach orbit space,  and the safety of the space station, 
as  quickly as possible.   Increase forward velocity to maximum.   At  this 
point you can take full advantage of the space-skip facility  (J).   Inter-
space jumping does not function (because of interference patterns) if there 
is another ship, a planet or a sun in the immediate vicinity.

Soon  your ship's computer will pick up the beacon signals of  the  nearest 
orbital space station and will re-engage the compass to track that  instead 
of  the target planet.   Once the Cobra is within scanning  and  protective 
range of the Coriolis station,  the flight-grid scanner will begin to track 
it.   Its  own defenses are now available for your  protection.   The  scan 
console will register the letter "S" as long as the space station is within 
range.

     Hyperdrive Across Galaxies

The  intergalactic  hyperdrive is expensive and can be obtained  only  from 
planets  at Tech level 10 or higher.   It can only be used once,  and  will 
take you to a system in a whole new galaxy (i.e.  a new F5 map).  There are 
8 such galaxies and making 8 jumps will return you to your starting galaxy.  
The Inter-Galactic Hyperdrive is engaged by pressing G then H.


















                                   - 8 -






DOCKING PROCEDURE

Docking  with a Coriolis space station is never easy,  unless the  ship  is 
equipped with an automatic  docking computer (in which case C will activate 
it).   The Navy Training Manual recommends the following approach and  dock 
sequence.

Locate the Coriolis station and approach it.   The entrance tunnels to  all 
these stations face the mother planet.  Fly near to the station and then on 
towards  the  planet (monitoring altitude carefully).   By turning  a  half 
circle you will now find your ship orientated towards the entrance.

Approach the final moments of docking at DEAD SLOW SPEED.   Failure to dock 
cleanly  can be fatal but may simply result in your scraping the  sides  of 
the  aperture,  with  consequent  loss of  defensive  shield(s)  and  quite 
possible your cargo.  Manually control the Cobra's roll motion to match the 
rotation  of  the  Coriolis station.   The entry port  must  be  as  nearly 
horizontal as possible.

If docking is successful;  the protective field across the station entrance 
is  penetrated,  and a break pattern appears on the  screen.   Berthing  is 
handled automatically.

Docking  protocol,  and  Orbit Space Regulations,  are  numerous,  and  are 
available  in the GC Orbit and System Space Code,  published by  Federation 
Planet Bureau.


----------------------
KEY FUNCTIONS - FLYING

   F1        - Launch
   SPACE     - Increase velocity
   J         - Space skip
   / (SLASH) - Decrease velocity
   <         - Counterclockwise roll
   >         - Clockwise roll
   S         - Dive
   X         - Climb
   G then H  - Inter-galactic hyperdrive
   C         - Docking computer toggle on/off


















                                   - 9 -






                           INTERPLANETARY TRAVEL


     IN-FLIGHT COMBAT:

COMBAT PROTOCOL

Not all ships in deep space,  even small fighters, are pirates.  Most ships 
will respond to hostile action with hostile action.  If you attack a police 
ship or trade in contraband goods (see Trading),  your legal status will be 
changed  to OFFENDER,  or even higher.   If you destroy  pirate  ships,  or 
Thargoid invaders,  (or asteroids) you will receive a bounty  payment.   If 
you  shoot at the Coriolis space station,  its own defensive  ships  (Viper 
class fighters) will attack you.

MANEUVERING

The  Cobra tradeship is fast,  and has a very tight turning circle  (though 
less tight at full speed);  it is an ideal combat ship against small  packs 
of enemy vessels.   It will outrun many attack craft by speed alone, but it 
will  not  outrun  a  missile.   Spinning,  fast-slow,  and  duck-and-weave 
maneuvers  are very effective against the larger,  less maneuverable  ships 
when  then  attack.   A sudden decrease in speed followed by  a  tight  180 
degree turn and an increase in velocity will often give you a big advantage 
over pursuing enemy craft.

SIGNS OF DANGER

If you cannot make an interspace quick jump J towards the planet,  there is 
a ship in the vicinity.  It could be dangerous.

If the status screen, during flight, shows YELLOW or RED, prepare to engage 
in combat.

Laser  fire striking the defensive shields makes a light screeching  sound.  
Listen for laser fire striking the hull direct.  Through damaged screens it 
makes a low, screeching sound.  DANGER.

An  incoming  missile will be detected,  tracked,  and  a  warning  message 
flashed on main screen.

Some star pilots are braver than others and pirate ships may break off  and 
run  in  the face of stiff resistance.   Some appear to know no fear  -  in 
particular  Thargoid  vessels,  whose captains have had their  fear  glands 
surgically removed.

LIKELY ENEMIES

Lone-wolf  traders  - such as Cobra pilots - are constantly  at  risk  from 
other Spacefaring types.   An understanding of other  loners,  packhunters, 
and bounty killers is essential.








                                  - 10 -






     Bounty Hunters

Unless you have achieved FUGITIVE status,  and especially if you are highly 
ranked as a combateer as well as being a criminal,  bounty hunters will not 
bother  a  ship as insignificant as a Cobra Mk 3.   In  fact,  many  bounty 
hunters  favor Cobra trade-ships as they make an excellent  disguise.   But 
the real killers star-ride in the sleek, and highly efficient, Fer-de-Lance 
Lightspeeder,  in which they live for months at a time.  Bounty hunters can 
always be found outside Orbit Space, especially around worlds classified as 
"dangerous".   They  are  invariably of combat  rating:  DEADLY  or  ELITE.  
Bounty hunters rarely identify themselves to passing ships, and if pestered 
too closely will usually kill.

     Pirate Vessels

There  are  several  ways  of identifying a  space-going  ship  as  "pirate 
occupied",  and this is essential since pirates and renegades will take any 
ship  for their purpose,  from a Worm to a massive Python.   Pirates  exist 
everywhere in the galaxy, but cluster mainly around unstable GalCop worlds, 
especially worlds run on a feudal or anarchic system.

Small ships hovering very distant from a planet are pirates.   Large  ships 
accompanied  by a mixture of small fighter types are pirates.   Ships  that 
refuse  to acknowledge identification signals are pirates.   Around  worlds 
run  by autocracies,  or clans,  pirates will very often have been paid  to 
leave trade ships alone.   Piracy is a huge, and complex, business, and any 
life-respecting trader will learn the tell-tale signs of pirate presence.

     Police

In  a Co-operative of Worlds as complex as the 2040 planets f  the  GalCop, 
the police can be as menacing as they can be helpful.   The typical  police 
vessel  is  a  Viper GH Class PulseShip,  which  is  very  fast,  and  very 
maneuverable.   They  are on constant standby on every Coriolis  and  Dodec 
space station,  and will attack - a pirate,  or a fugitive trader -  within 
seconds.   They  do not make arrests,  they destroy.   There are  different 
police   departments  serving  different  purposes  -   narcotics,   space-
drunkenness, psychotic shooting, piracy, slave trading, etc. - but all have 
small fleets of these very fast Viper patrol craft.

     Thargoid Invasion Ships and Thargons

The Thargoids are humankind's deadly enemy,  and throughout the 8  galaxies 
there are at least 50 war zones between humanity and Thargoid.  This highly 
technologically advanced insectoid race is also at war with 17 other space-
going life-forms.

All Thargoid combateers are ruthless in combat,  and some may be comparable 
with elite-status human combat pilots.

Though  most  of  the  Thargoid Space Fleet is  currently  engaged  by  the 
Galactic  Navy in InterGalactic Space,  a few of the smaller  battle  ships 
make  occasional  destructor-raids  into  human  space.   These  ships  are 
extremely  fast  for  their size and  invariably  have  anti-missile  (ECM) 
Systems.




                                  - 11 -






Additionally,  most  Thargoid  battle ships carry  several  small,  remote-
controlled "thargons", killer-craft each equipped with a single, but highly 
advanced,  pulse-laser.   The Galactic Navy are developing their own  deep-
space  RemCraft,  and  pay a large bounty for any thargon  craft  that  are 
brought to them.

(N.B.  Bounty on Thargoid invasion craft destroyed is very high.   Thargoid 
battle-cruisers believed to be able to "hover" in Witch-Space  (hyperspace) 
and destroy through-coming craft).

OTHER SPACE TYPES

     Rock Hermits

Pirates,  aging bounty hunters,  or planetary outcasts,  who create  living 
space out of asteroids.   They usually choose large asteroids,  and set  up 
signal beacons to warn off miners.   GalCop Law protects Rock Hermits,  but 
since most of the asteroid is hollowed-out, there is little advantage to be 
gained by "mining" them anyway.

     Generation Ships

Before  the  development of the WS Thru-Space drive,  in  all  its  various 
forms,  interstellar travel occurred in large,  self-sustaining environment 
ships  -  Generation Ships - most of which have now been logged  and  their 
progress monitored.   There are more than seventy thousand of these immense 
vessels  ploughing their way through the galaxy,  some of them  into  their 
30th  generation.   The  penalty  for interference with such  a  vessel  is 
marooning.

     Space Dredgers

These immense factory ships are to be found wherever there has been a  war, 
or a Thargoid invasion,  or a natural catastrophe.   More than forty  miles 
long,  the dredgers are a life-form to themselves.   The Dredgers are  huge 
cities in space, feeding off debris and ruination.  Heavily armed, and with 
fleets of reconditioned fighter ships, they are to be avoided at all cost.

COMBAT CONSOLE

(bars to the left of the scanner)

1.   (FS & AS)  Defensive shields take power from two energy bank  sources, 
fore and aft.

2.   (missile)  Missile status depicts the number of missiles on board  and 
whether  they are "targetted" (purple) or "untargetted" (green) or  "locked 
and ready to fire" (red).

3.   (LT)   Laser  temperature will rise during continuous  firing  of  the 
ship's  laser(s).    As  the  central  housing  overheats,   a  laser  will 
temporarily cut out rather than destroy the system.

(flight grid scanner)

4.  The 3-dimensional scanner operates in such as way that you can pinpoint 
a  ship above and below yours,  as well as to the front,  behind or to  the 
sides.  The vertical bars show this clearly.

                                  - 12 -






(bars to the right of the scanner)

5.   (1,2,3,4)   Energy banks will rapidly drain if defensive  shields  are 
taking excessive fire.  Using lasers or an ECM System will also drain their 
resources.   When  the fourth bank is tapped,  an ENERGY LOW  message  will 
flash onto the screen.  Eventually, in normal circumstances, the banks will 
be automatically replenished by surface radiation absorption.

AGRESSIVE WEAPONRY

     ITEM                     TECH LEVEL          PRICE/CR
     Fuel                       always             varies
     Missile                    always                30
     Large Cargo Bay            always               400
     ECM System                    2                 600
     Pulse Laser                   3                 400
     Beam Laser                    4                1000
     Fuel Scoops                   5                 525
     Escape Capsule                6                1000
     Energy Bomb                   7                 900
     Extra Energy Unit             8                1500
     Docking Computers             9                1500
     Galactic Hyperdrive          10                5000
     Mining Lasers                10                 800
     Military Lasers              10                6000

LASERS

Pulse lasers are initially housed only in the front of the ship,  and so no 
sights  appear  across  rear  or side views until such  time  as  you  have 
sufficient  credits  (from combat and trading) to afford lasers  for  these 
mountings.   As we shall see, with sufficient cash you will also be able to 
upgrade pulse to more powerful beam lasers.

The  Cobra  astrogation console accommodates a single laser-fire  key  (A).  
Pilots with joysticks use the fire button of course.   Even fully  equipped 
only one laser may be fired at a time.   If a laster overheats it will  not 
fire (observe the laser temperature bar).

Lasers are the principal armament of all space fighters.

Pulse  lasers will be offered for sale at planets of Tech level 3 or  above 
(see Trading).  Beam Lasers will be offered at Tech level 4 or above.  If a 
beam laser replaces a pulse laser the price of the pulse laser is  refunded 
after the beam one has been fitted.

     Pulse Laser Specification:

Ingram  Model  1919A4 Pulse Laser is recommended for all  positional  laser 
mountings,   but   is  especially  effective  for   rear-shooting.    Fires 
intermittent laser "rods" 610mm in length,  with a cycle rate of 1500 RoPM.  
The  barrel is of high grade Allutium fiber,  lined with tempered  QuQorian 
Silica.   Power  provided directly from inverse energy banks  contained  in 
main  ship's drive.   Each rod is capable of piercing 267mm of  Flux-Locked 
metal.




                                  - 13 -






     Beam Laser Specification:

Ingram Model M1928A2 is highly recommended for front shooting.  beam lasers 
fire continuous laser strands, up to 150 in parallel.  Barrel is Allutium + 
lined with tensioned plastiglass, and as with the 1919A4 Pulse laser, power 
is provided by main drive link.  Beam lasers are capable of slicing through 
410mm FL metal.

Military  lasers are the very height of  sophistication.   Costing  fifteen 
times  the  price of a pulse laser and available only on  planets  at  Tech 
level 10, it is an extremely effective piece of hardware.

(See also Mining lasers under Non-Combative Equipment)

     Military Laser Specification:

Range  and penetration twice as effective as the Ingram Model M1928A2  beam 
laser.   This  is Lance & Ferman's entre into the laser  market.   Hitherto 
known for their highly effective and relatively cheap missile  systems,  in 
the  military laser they have in effect created a whole new  laser  market.  
The LF90 is the current computer-aided model and comes with x4SUSAT sights.

MISSILES

Missiles  are  always available,  whatever the nature of  your  destination 
world,  though no more than four may be carried at any one time.   They are 
extremely effective weapons and are carried by the larger star ships.  Your 
ship's  computer will warn you when one is fired at you with a message  on-
screen.   Unless your ship is fitted with ECM (see below) you will have  to 
outmaneuver  the missile,  which will home in on you  relentlessly.   If  a 
missile hits you,  it can almost completely exhaust a fully charged  shield 
and, if your shields and energy are low, may well be fatal.

Before a missile can be fired it must be locked onto a target.  When fired, 
it  will  home  in  on  that target  and  destroy  it,  unless  your  enemy 
successfully  takes  on of the precautions described  above.   The  missile 
launch  mechanism is very reliable and hardly ever jams.   Missiles can  be 
locked onto targets in any view (F1, F2, F3 or F4).

The targeting sequence is engaged by hitting the T key.  The square missile 
status  indicator on the astrogation console will then turn  purple.   When 
any possible target enters the cross-hair region the missile will lock onto 
it,  the missile status block turning red.  A beep will sound to inform you 
of this.

Pressing  the I key switches on the ship ID computer.   This computer  will 
tell  you the class of the next enemy ship to pass in front of your  cross-
hairs, and then it will automatically Lock a missile onto that ship.

The  M key will then fire the missile.   The U key (Unarm) will  abort  the 
sequence at any time before firing.








                                  - 14 -






     Missile Specification:

Lance  &  Ferman Homing Missiles (4x4) are now recommended  for  all  small 
class  trade-combat  ships,  but can be fitted as part of  a  mixed  design 
weapon  rack.   LF  missiles have 2IL-135 guidance  systems,  and  optional 
manual  directional  control overrides.   Warhead packed  with  Terminal  9 
explosive,  and the 4x4 is invulnerable to all known counteraction,  except 
ECM systems.  Capable of Megazon Destruct Force 7.  Prototype first used in 
2987, during Ineran Wars.

ENERGY BOMBS

An  energy  bomb will be offered for sale at a planet of Tech  level  7  or 
higher, and can be used only once.  It is activated by the TAB key and will 
destroy all other ships, asteroids, and missiles in the vicinity.

     Energy Bomb Specification:

Medusa Pandora Self Homing Energy Bomb (available at Tech Level 7 worlds or 
higher)  is a tactical weapon capable of Megazon Destruct  Force  13.   Has 
heat  radius of 900 km.   Developed by Klaus-Kline laboratories for  multi-
role combat using "launch-and-leave" techniques.

DEFENSIVE MEASURES

SAFETY ZONE

The  Orbit Space around any Coriolis Space Station is safe.   The  Stations 
own defences will come to your immediate assistance.   Entry to safety zone 
is signalled with a large "S" on the astrogation console.

SHIELDS AND ENERGY BANKS

You ship comes equipped with fore and aft shields and  energy  banks.   The 
shields protect your ship from agressive fire,  and will be recharged  from 
the energy banks.   Constant fire will harm the shields.   Once a shield is 
depleted,  enemy lasers and missiles striking that shield will take  energy 
directly from the energy banks and may even destroy items of cargo or  ship 
fittings.   When  all  your  energy  banks are  empty  your  ship  will  be 
destroyed.   Using  lasers or an ECM system will also deplete  your  energy 
banks.

The  ship's computer will keep you informed of any damage to your ship  and 
will also warn you when energy levels are dangerously low.

An  Extra Energy Unit may be fitted at planets of Tech level 8  or  higher, 
and  doubles the energy bank replenishment rate.   This is the energy  unit 
with the copper colored top.   No other unit looks like it,  or lasts  like 
it.

     Defensive Shield Specification:

The shields consist of hi-tense flux webs of Zieman-charged  sub-particles.  
They are weakest where the laser and missile tubes pass through the  ship's 
hull,  and along the central ship bank where the two shields  overlap,  and 
cause a stress zone.



                                  - 15 -






ECM

An ECM System (literally Electronic Counter Measures System) is offered for 
sale at Tech level 2,  and may be used any number of times given sufficient 
energy replacement.  When activated by the E key, ECM destroys all missiles 
in  your vicinity - including any that you have fired.   Some enemy  ships, 
especially  traders,  will have this and may use it against your  missiles.  
Your  ship's  computer  displays an E on the console when  it  detects  ECM 
broadcasts.

     Anti-missile (ECM) System Specification:

Radiant-Magnetic  "wipe-out" using ion-saturation theory developed by  Bell 
and Braben on riedquat 359.  Electronic Counter Measures Systems use minute 
charged particles of InterSpac heavy Element dust,  releasing their radiant 
energy and setting up expanding nuclear flux chains.

ESCAPE CAPSULE

An escape capsule can be fitted in place of your cabin at any world of Tech 
level  6  or higher.   If Q is then hit during combat the capsule  will  be 
jettisoned from the ship, be automatically tracked by the nearest world and 
will  travel  safely  to  a Coriolis space  station.   Your  cash  will  be 
preserved but all your cargo will be lost.

However,  this  item comes with a widely recognized insurance  cover  which 
will guarantee you a new Cobra Class ship,  equipped in like  manner.   The 
contents of the cargo hold is exempt from this protection.

Since  the  unique  IR signature of a ship's hull is used  to  file  police 
records,   abandoning   your  ship  in  this  way  will  have  the   effect 
(unfortunately exploited as much by galactic brigands as trader victims) of 
clearing your police record.

You  may see an escape capsule leaving an enemy ship.   This will not  harm 
you unless you crash into it.

     Escape Capsule Specification:

Recommended model is the Xeesian FastJet LSC 7, which can support two human 
life-forms for seven weeks, in moderate Suspended An.state.

NON-COMBATIVE EQUIPMENT

FUEL

Fuel is always available.  You can refill your tanks to full (7 light-year) 
capacity - no less is permitted.

FUEL SCOOPS

Fuel  Scoops  may  be fitted to the hull at a planet of  Tech  level  5  or 
higher.   These  enable a ship to obtain free hyperspace fuel by  "skimming 
the sun" - flying close to it at high velocity.





                                  - 16 -






Since  fuel  scoops utilize powerful electro-magnetic fields to  guide  the 
solar  winds  into  their converters,  they may also be  used  to  pick  up 
miscellaneous  space  debris.   Almost all pirate vessels are  fitted  with 
these so that they can blast their prey apart and sift among the  wreckage, 
rather than attempt to dock with a hostile craft.

Once fuel scoops are installed, you can scoop up an object (such as a cargo 
canister)  by keeping it in the lower half of the screen view  areas  while 
flying right up to it.

     Fuel Scoop Specification:

Fuel scoops are considered an essential for Deep Space,  and dangerous zone 
trading.   They have a standard design,  and a standard fitment.   They use 
powerful  electromagnetic fields to guide solar wind or small space  debris 
into their ReQax convertors.

CARGO BAY EXTENSION

One cargo bay extension can be bought, increasing the hold space from 20 to 
35 tonnes.

     Cargo Bay Extension Specification:

Standard model is the Mariner Freight Chamber.

DOCKING COMPUTER

This  is available from all Tech level 9 planets;  they are fitted  to  the 
ship's flight control system and enable it to dock the ship  automatically.  
The  auto-docking  sequence is triggered by the C key and switched  off  by 
pressing C again.

     Docking Computer Specification:

The  SinCorn RemLock D&A System is a sophisticated and expensive  piece  of 
gadgetry.  It comes with MemnSomn pilot interaction to induce hi-cram sleep 
during the maneuvers.

INTERGALACTIC HYPERDRIVE

The intergalactic hyperdrive is obtainable only from planets at Tech  level 
10 or higher,  and can only be used once.  The Inter-Galactic Hyperdrive is 
engaged by pressing G then H.

     IGH Specification:

although  a  number of manufacturers have supported a whole  range  of  IGH 
motors,  it is recommended you remain loyal to Xexor/Hikan who provide  the 
standard hyperspace transit drives.









                                  - 17 -






ASTEROID MINING LASERS

Asteroid  mining  involves the fitting of fuel scoops  and  special  mining 
lasers to your ship.  Ships which always carry them are known as "Belters".  
They search for asteroids and, on finding one, use the laser to fragment it 
into pieces sufficiently small to be taken into the cargo bay.

     Mining Lasers Specification:

Kruger Model ARM64 Sp.  Mining laser is highly recommended as both a  trade 
and combat addition.   Uses variable frequency laser rods of 200mm  length, 
fired  in  wide beam,  100 channels/beam.   Automatic  debris-pattern  lock 
ensures  no  fragments  of large size of target asteroid  impinge  on  ship 
space.  can be fitted with a fuel and matter scoop.


----------------------
KEY FUNCTIONS - COMBAT

   A   - Fire laser
   T   - Target missile
   I   - Ship ID computer
   M   - Fire missile
   U   - Unarm missile
   E   - Operate ECM
   TAB - Launch energy bomb
   Q   - Launch escape capsule
   F4  - Equipment acquisition




                           INTERGALACTIC TRADING

The  Cobra Mk III,  designed primarily as a trading ship,  combines  combat 
efficiency  and  maneuverability  with substantial cargo  space  (20  Tonne 
Canisters)  and with scoop attachments for space debris,  jettisoned  cargo 
and space rock.

Most space stations have made the process of trading very simple,  in order 
to  facilitate  a  fast turnover in goods and  ships.   Import  and  export 
tariffs  -  which  are high on some worlds -  are  automatically  added  or 
deducted  and  this  is reflected in the  prices  shown.   The  auto-trader 
system,  employed  by the Cobra,  does not allow for more specific  trading 
deals to be performed.

A selection of the more valuable alien items that are tradeable is given in 
this manual, but the trader must deal with them in person.

Once docked you are linked directly with the CorCom Trade System.   At your 
request you can obtain a list of basic trade items available for purchase.

Slaves  are  measured by the tonne in galactic trading.   This may  seem  a 
little strange,  but it includes the cryogenic suspension system  necessary 
to  keep  them alive during space travel.   The slave  trade,  once  almost 
eliminated by the Galactic government is now returning, despite the efforts 
of the Galactic Police Force to suppress it.


                                  - 18 -





     
                                                               AVERAGE
     ITEM                                                      PRICE/CR
     
     Food          (Simple organic products, see below)          4.4 tonne
     Textiles      (Unprocessed fabrics)                         6.4   "
     Radioactives  (Ores and by-products)                       21.2   "
   * Slaves        (Usually humanoid)                            8.0   "
     Liquor/Wines  (Exotic spirits from unearthy flora)         25.2   "
     Luxuries      (Perfumes, Spices, Coffee)                   91.2   "
   * Narcotics     (Tobacco, Arcturan Megaweed)                114.8   "
     Computers     (Intelligent machinery)                      84.0   "
     Machinery     (Factory and farm equipment)                 56.4   "
     Alloys        (Industrial Metals)                          32.8   "
   * Firearms      (Small-scale artillery, sidearms, etc)       70.4   "
     Furs          (Includes leathers, Millennium Wompom Pelts) 56.0   "
     Minerals      (Unrefined rock containing trace elements)    8.0 kg
     Gold                                                       37.2 kg
     Platinum                                                   65.2 kg
     Gem-stones    (Includes jewelry)                           16.4 g
     Alien Items   (Artifacts, Weapons, etc)                    27.0 tonne
     
* These items are defined as illegal by the Galactic Government, so trading 
  in them is risky.

F8 activates a list of basic trade items at current market prices.

Shown on this list are the quantities of each item available (vertical  bar 
to  the right of the item),  and the current market price per  unit.   Most 
CorCom Trade Systems deal exclusively under blanket  categories,  including 
Food, Machinery, Minerals and Gemstones.

The prices shown at the time of trading represent an offer to you and  will 
be guaranteed while you are in Trading Mode.

F10 offers an inventory of cargo, fuel and cash.
F3 puts you in purchase mode.

If you wish to buy,  numerically indicate the amount you wish to  purchase; 
autoSCAM  modules will immediately load your purchase into the  cargo  bay.  
your screen will indicate your remaining credit facility.

The Cobra trade ship must dock with a Coriolis space station before  buying 
or selling cargo.   It has no Free Space trade facility, apart from routine 
jettisoning of cannisters.

Once  docked,  the  selling  process is automated,  although  there  is  no 
requirement to sell.  F2 puts you in selling mode.












                                  - 19 -






HOW TO TRADE

BUYING MODE FOR GOODS

   F8  - List of goods available on target planet
   F10 - Inventory of your cargo
   F8  - To see again what is available
   F3  - To buy some goods use the mouse, joystick or cursors to select
         item and then press fire or double click either button.  You will
         then be asked to enter the quantity of goods you require on a
         calculator pad.

SELLING MODE

   F2  - To sell some goods use the mouse, joystick or cursors to select
         item and then press fire or double click either button.  You will
         then be asked to enter the quantity of goods you wish to sell on
         a calculator pad.

ADVICE TO TRADERS

The Cobra trade ship can be fitted with four lasers,  four missiles and one 
energy bomb.   This should be sufficient to make trade possible within  the 
System  Space  of  even  heavily piratised  worlds.   But  it  is  strongly 
recommended  that pilots achieve a combat of at least "Deadly"  before  any 
worlds designated "Anarchy" or "Feudal" are approached,  especially if  the 
cargo is high tech machinery or luxury goods.

To make money as a trader is no easy task.  Unless you have backing capital 
you would be well advised to start with foodstuffs,  textiles, minerals and 
luxuries.

Demand  for goods varies widely and prices within  planets  fluctuate,  but 
galCop regulations prohibit planets from advertising their requirements  or 
announcing their market prices beyond their own System Space.   Any trader, 
therefore, approaches all transactions with a certain financial risk.

Trade  depends  upon demand,  and selling prices depend upon  the  level  f 
demand on the planet,  and its available money.   None of these factors can 
be assessed before docking.

Agricultural planets invariably have excess produce at reasonable  purchase 
prices,  and  such  food sells well at  industrialised,  middle-  to  high-
technology worlds.   Raw materials, and ores, will sell well to middle-tech 
worlds,  which are usually able to refine them, and the refined product can 
fetch excellent prices at worlds of very high tech status.

The rules are complex, and anarchy and piracy has its effect on causing the 
rules to change.

In trading with a planet, consider its economic profile:

AGRICULTURAL  WORLDS  need specialist food and raw  materials,  but  mostly 
basic machinery and spare parts.   If they are rich, they need luxuries and 
high  tech  industrial  machines.   They  produce  food  in  quantity,  raw 
materials and specialized "organic" items, like some textiles.



                                  - 20 -






INDUSTRIAL WORLDS need agricultural produce;  raw materials (for refining); 
resource exploitation machinery;  (if rich) high tech goods.   They produce 
basic items of need for civilized worlds:  beds,  seals and gaskets,  power 
storage  units,  basic weapons,  mass produced  fertilizer,  mass  produced 
medicines, etc.

Think about a planet's needs.
Think what might make the society function.
Don't trade expensive trivia to a hungry world.

If the profit isn't worth it, trade it somewhere else.

ALTERNATIVES TO TRADING

Since  the Cobra craft is equipped as a fighter as well as a  trader,  with 
in-built  capacity for strengthening its armaments,  there are  alternative 
life-styles  to  trading  which  may  prove  profitable,   but  which   are 
excessively dangerous.

BOUNTY HUNTING

Galactic banks,  which insure the larger trading convoys,  will pay a large 
bounty  for each pirate ship destroyed.   A ship's computer  will  transmit 
photographic evidence of any kill to the GalCop Bank Federation  Monitoring 
Authority.  The IR signature of the destroyed ship is then tallied with all 
known pirate vessels, and the bounty hunter pilot credited accordingly.

Bounty  hunters commonly have Cobra Class ships in order to  masquerade  as 
traders.   They simply hyperspace into a system (anarchic and feudal worlds 
especially)  and wait to be attacked,  ensuring that they  have  sufficient 
hyperspace fuel (Quirium) for a quick escape.

PIRACY

Piracy is widespread throughout the 8 galaxies,  and many pirates  are  not 
hardened criminals at all,  but failed traders who have turned to this  way 
of life in desperation.   To survive as a pirate, looting freighter convoys 
and  small ships,  requires a high degree of combat experience,  since  not 
just  Police  Vipers will pursue them,  but other pirate ships  and  Bounty 
Hunters, too, prey upon them.

But the rewards are high.  Provided the pirate ship is equipped with a fuel 
scoop,  the  jettisoned  tonne-cannisters of attacked cargo  ships  can  be 
scooped up and traded.

ASTEROID MINING

There  is money in rock,  but to make the most of it a Cobra ship  must  be 
fitted with a fuel scoop and a MinReduc 15 Mining Laser (or some equivalent 
type).   The  mining laser will blast very large asteroids into very  small 
fragments and the scoop can rapidly swallow this tradeable ore.








                                  - 21 -






FREE SPACE CARGO

Trade  ships are often destroyed (by natural catastrophe or  enemy  action) 
and their cargo left ungathered.  Using a fuel scoop such "free bounty" can 
be collected.   The contents of the cannisters will be known until they are 
taken  aboard and examined,  and may be worthless or worth a  fortune.   It 
their  contents  are illegal goods,  they cannot be traded r  sold  without 
legal risk.

(NB:  Pressurized cargo canisters are the Universal means of storing  cargo 
for Interplanetary Space voyaging.  Made of HiFlux Chromon-alloy, they hold 
one Gal Tonne of goods, under variable pressure and temperature conditions.  
Tales have been told of such barrels being discovered after over 500  years 
on  barren  moons,  and  such  "Moon salvage" is  a  remarkable  source  of 
historical artifact material.)

ILLEGAL TRADING

It  is surprising how many planetary systems will allow the  purchasing  of 
illegal  trade  items,  notably firearms,  narcotics  (especially  Arcturan 
Megaweed) and slaves.  Slaves are supplied in cryosuspension in transporter 
coffins,  and  often  turn  out to be old and  sick  specimens  of  vaguely 
humanoid life forms.   Nonetheless,  few systems will allow the selling  of 
these items without taking recriminatory action.


---------------------
KEY FUNCTIONS - TRADE

   F8  - Market prices
   F10 - Inventory
   F3  - Buying mode/trade goods
   F2  - Selling mode/trade goods






                     POLITICAL PROFILE OF THE UNIVERSE

CONSEQUENCES FOR TRADE

To trade successfully, and profitably, will almost certainly require you to 
fly  the  Cobra  trade ship into politically  unstable  planetary  systems.  
Pirate and free-booter activity is high in many solar systems, and adequate 
ship defences are essential if the rewards of higher selling prices are  to 
be reaped.

For the benefit of new traders,  a brief political summary is given  below, 
but reference should be made to Kroweki & Carr's PsychoHistory and Economic 
Theory in the GalFederation, 2845.







                                  - 22 -






Planetary  governments,  or federations, determine the relative  safety  of 
their  Solar  Space.   Ranked  in decreasing  order  of  safety,  the  2040 
officially registered worlds of the Galactic Federation can be classified as

     Corporate States
     Democracies
     Confederacies
     Communist States
     Dictatorships
     Multi-Governments
     Feudal Worlds
     Anarchies

CORPORATE STATES

Like ENGEMA and ZAATXE,  these are well-ordered worlds,  which have usually 
developed  from  settlers who practiced a free trade  form of  competition.  
Taxation  is high on such worlds,  but the living standards are high  also.  
Corporate planets with to protect their trade,  so goods are expensive, but 
luxuries are welcomed.  Import licences are often necessary.

Engema  is  an agricultural world,  run as a single  farming  co-operative.  
Farmers receive a fixed payment for their crops, whether or not the harvest 
is  good,  and  selling prices do not vary greatly.   It  is  a  dependable 
market,  and  customer relations are good.   Luxuries,  machinery  and  raw 
materials sell well here.

Zaatxe  is  an example of a rich,  industrial state (Tech  level  12).   It 
produces  luxury  goods,  elaborate and  innovative  machine  systems,  and 
specializes in Prototype design.  Prices fluctuate depending upon the level 
of  inter-state competition,  but it is always a safe bet to buy  recently-
developed  machine  items  which have not yet spread very  far  across  the 
galaxy.

DICTATORSHIPS

Dictatorships such as the worlds Lave and Enzaer,  are only moderately safe 
to  trade with,  but are well worth the risk (provided the trader  is  well 
defended  and  combat trained).   Very often pirate attack will  not  occur 
because  of  an agreement between pirate fleets and the  world  itself.   A 
proportion of all incoming trade is "allowed" to be stolen by pirates,  who 
will then leave the world alone, and protect its shops from aliens or rogue 
traders.  It is an uneasy liaison, which often breaks down.

Lave  is  an agricultural world,  and Enzaer an industrial  planet,  but  a 
similar  principle  operates  on both  surfaces.   There  are  two  trading 
standards,  that of the People and that of the Aristocracy.   Standards  of 
living are artificially generated,  a veneer of progress, and luxury goods, 
machinery and textiles sell well - usually.   The great demand, however, is 
for basic commodities,  especially foodstuffs,  clothing and raw materials.  
These  will  sell  well when the voice of the People  has  been  raised  in 
protest.







                                  - 23 -






ANARCHY PLANETS

A  trader  can  make  his biggest profits here  and  reach  his  grave  the 
quickest.   Worlds  like Onisou and Xeesenri have vast wreck-yards  in  far 
orbit,  the dead places of ships that came to trade honestly, and fell prey 
to trickery.

These are lawless places,  and have usually become so because the  original 
settlers  completed too hard when there was too little  resource  material.  
Those  worlds which survived holocaust did so because of uneasy and  bloody 
alliances  between clan families.   Pirates and mercenaries were hired  for 
protection and assassination purposes.   Anarchic worlds will trade readily 
in narcotics,  slaves,  firearms and exotica, and the price will be good... 
if  you  get  a price at all.   These worlds are  almost  always  supplying 
invisible Masters, usually elite trader/combateers who have turned to crime 
as the most profitable way of life.  Such form loose federations, and trade 
on the black market extensively throughout the galaxies.

These worlds pay highly for goods they cannot produce  themselves,  because 
they  know that traders avoid them.   Their own products need  specialized, 
illegal outlets:  weaponry,  narcotics,  eavesdropping devices...  if  it's 
covert,  then anarchic worlds are producing it.   Trade in these items  and 
you will get rich quick, or dead quick, or at least become a "Fugitive".

ALIEN RACES

Of the 2040 officially registered planets in the GalCop, all but 45 support 
human colonies only, that is to say, human presence elsewhere is restricted 
to settlements in under-populated parts of the land surface.

Trading at such worlds depends,  for its success, very much upon the extant 
state of co-operation between human and alien.   Human control the Coriolis 
stations  in  orbit,  but the availability of items for  trade,  and  their 
relative expense, can be affected by the controlling life forms.

Most  alien life forms are either too primitive,  or too glad of  off-World 
trade,  to interfere.   Some,  such as the Reptiloid life form of Esanbe or 
the  Amphibioids of Anbeen,  can make a trader's life  very  difficult,  by 
haggling at the point of a laser.

The available planetary information on all worlds will indicate the  nature 
of the inhabiting life form.

BIRD-FORMS.   Dealing  in  alien artifacts on such  worlds  often  involves 
forming  a close liaison with Flight Elders,  or Nest Elders,  and this  is 
very  much  a job for the specialist.   Bird-forms are,  on  the  whole,  a 
delight to trade with,  and the highest form of honor (fairly  universally) 
that  an off-worlder can receive is an (invitation to "keep the  eggs  warm 
for a moment".

AMPHIBIOIDS are usually a lot sharper than their wet,  sluggish  appearance 
would  suggest.   They are usually keen to trade in  narcotics,  or  exotic 
foodstuffs.   Skin creams are always well received.   Technologically  they 
tend to be backward,  but will pay high prices for such middle-range  items 
as automated ponds, croak metres, spawn freezers and swamp purifiers.




                                  - 24 -






FELINES  are dangerous in the extreme.   No matter what sort  of  political 
structures  the  world may have,  feline aliens are  pack  orientated,  and 
feudal,  and  very  unpredictable.   All traders are advised to  wear  body 
suits,  to  prevent secretions of sweat from triggering a feeding  response 
among these hostile and enigmatic life forms.

To win the confidence of a feline alien is almost invariably to be  invited 
to mate, so a certain aloofness is recommended.

INSECTOIDS.   The  most  dangerous insectoidal life form is  the  Thargoid, 
which is mentioned in the Combat section.   Insectoidals are usually highly 
intelligent,  often  existing  as  a  group  mind.   There  is  rarely  any 
individuality among insectoids,  and the trader must beware making deals in 
such a way.   One life form builds earth cities up to four miles high,  and 
over four million drones live in the middle levels.   According to  legend, 
any  trader  who voluntarily ascends the earth passageway  from  ground  to 
upper  surface  of  these immense mounds is honored  with  the  rare  title 
Ascender  of the Scent City.   And then consumed alive.   But trading  with 
insectoids  can be immensely profitable,  as there are so many of them  (to 
trade  in  wrist  watches,  for example,  means two  to  four  watches  per 
individual in a clone-group of perhaps ten thousand).

In dealing with any alien life-form,  for the purposes of trade,  there are 
three cardinal rules:

     Learn the body language of the alien race.

     Cover up your body scent.

     Beware of Carapace concealed weapons.









                   OBSERVER'S GUIDE TO SHIPS IN SERVICE


In  most  trading  and combat  operations,  certain  ships  are  repeatedly 
encountered.    All   ships,   whether  unarmed  cargo  shuttles  or   Navy 
transporters,  are  potentially  dangerous  as pirate  and  bounty  hunting 
activity spreads.  Some ships are potentially more dangerous than others.

The brief guide given here is just an indication of the range of ship-types 
plying  the trade and space lanes.   The illustrations show top,  side  and 
front views of each craft.  Dimension data provide the scale.  For a fuller 
account  see Jane's Galactic Ships and Remote  Colonial  Construction,  5th 
Edition, 3205 pub. Trantor House.







                                  - 25 -






ADDER

Manufactured by Outworld Workshops,  a rogue breakaway company from Spalder 
and Prime Inc. which operates without license from an unknown location, the 
Adder-class craft has dual atmospheric-spatial capability and is often used 
by  smugglers.   Pregg's "wingfolding" system permits landing on  planetary 
surfaces.  Carries one missile.

     Dimensions - 45/8/30 ft
     Cargo Capacity - 2 TC (Tonne Canisters)
     Armaments - Ingram 1928 AZ Beam laser; Geret Starseeker missile
     Maximum Velocity - 0.24 LM (Light Mach)
     Inservice Date - 2914 AD (Outworld Workshop)
     Maneuverability - CF (Curve Factor) 4
     Crew Number - 2
     Drive Motors - AM 18 bi Thrust
     Hull Stress Factor - T Ko 28
     Hyperspace Capability - Yes




ANACONDA

The  largest  known  freighter with a cargo bay designed  by  Beerbaum  and 
ThruSpace  Inc.,  the  Anaconda is the only freighter fitted  with  Dizaner 
SpaceWares  swing-float  platforms.   These load-balance  metering  devices 
enable  the  loadmaster to rearrange the cargo within seconds  to  increase 
maneuverability of the great ship.  Equipped only with laser weaponry (the 
500 Gigazap front-firing pulse),  and sometimes with missiles, the Anaconda 
range  of  craft usually have fighter escorts.   In  trader  parlance,  the 
Anaconda is built as strong as a rogue asteroid, and steers like one.

     Dimensions - 170/60/75 ft
     Cargo Capacity - 750 TC
     Armaments - Front-fire Hassoni HiRad Pulse laser; ColtMaster
        Starlasers; Missiles (Geret Starseekers)
     Maximum Velocity - 0.14 LM
     Inservice Date - 2856 AD (RimLiner Galactic)
     Maneuverability - CF (Curve Factor) 3
     Crew Number - 40-72
     Drive Motors - V&K 32.24 Ergmasters, with under-and-over firing tubes
     Hull Stress Factor - T(ensmann) Ji57 C-Holding Z 22-28
     Hyperspace Capability - Yes















                                  - 26 -






ASP MK II

Galactic  Navy  vessel designed and manufactured in  government  workshops, 
incorporating  secret  self-destruct devices which are primed  to  activate 
when the astrogation controls are used by unfamiliar hands.  Integument has 
chameleon  properties enabling the ship to assume effective  camouflage  in 
any type of environment.   Intended for reconnaissance and the transport of 
high-ranking   military  personnel  from  combat  it  is  very   fast   and 
maneuverable.   Despite  its  hazardous  nature it makes  an  ideal  pirate 
vessel,  primarily   because of the speed,  camouflage and  high  intensity 
Hassoni-Kruger  Burst-lasers.   The  Asp II has room  for  powerful  shield 
generators, but only one missile port.

     Dimensions - 70/20/65 FT
     Cargo Capacity - None
     Armaments - Hassoni-Kruger Burst Laser; Geret Starseeker missile
     Maximum Velocity - 0.40 LM
     Inservice Date - 2878 AD (GalCop Workshops)
     Maneuverability - CF 4
     Crew Number - 2
     Drive Motors - Voltaire Whiplash HZ Pulsedrive
     Hull Stress Factor - TT 16
     Hyperspace Capability - Yes





BOA CLASS CRUISER

Although marginally smaller than the Python,  which it superseded,  the Boa 
has  a greater cargo capacity due to refinements in equipment design  (e.g. 
the  Renold  Astrogation  bloc  is  one fifth  the  size  of  the  previous 
Machanalian  Interspatial Wayfinder) and reduced number of necessary  crew.  
Largely  developed out of the recommendations left by  Commodore  Monty,  a 
Python Captain of 40 years experience.

     Dimensions - 115/60/65 ft
     Cargo Capacity - 125 TC
     Armaments - Ergon Laser system; Standard JK Pulse laser; IFS Seek &
        Hunt missiles
     Maximum Velocity - 0.24 LM
     Inservice Date - 3017 AD (Gerege Federation Space Works)
     Maneuverability - CF 4
     Crew Number - 15-28
     Drive Motors - 4 C40KV Ames Drive motors.  Seeklight Thrust Systems
     Hull Stress Factor - T(ensmann) Yo20 C-Holding K21-31
     Hyperspace Capability - Yes











                                  - 27 -






COBRA MK I

Combat-trader craft favored latterly by pirates,  the Mark I Cobra was  the 
first  trade ship designed and built for the one-man trader.   Its  special 
feature at the time of manufacture (by Paynou,  Prossett and Salem) was its 
Prossett  Drive,  which  incorporated afterburners  with  proton-tightened, 
interior shaft walls.   These are now a standard fitting for both  internal 
and external integuments of all PPS made craft.

     Dimensions - 55/15/70 ft
     Cargo Capacity -10 TC
     Armaments - Hassoni Variscan laser system and early Lance & Ferman
         missile system
     Maximum Velocity - 0.26
     Inservice Date - 2855 (Paynou, Prossett and Salem)
     Maneuverability - CF 3
     Crew Number - 1
     Drive Motors - Prossett Drive
     Hull Stress Factor - T Ji 18
     Hyperspace Capability - Yes





COBRA MK III

Larger,  more  popular  version of the Cobra Mk I (the Mk  2  only  reached 
prototype stage and was abandoned due to a design fault in the hull).  This 
ship  is equipped with several special features,  including  Zieman  Energy 
Deflection  Shields,  fore  and aft,  and mountings for four  Ingram  Pulse 
lasers.  The Cobra is much favored by lone-wolf traders who wish to combine 
potential superior combat qualities with adequate cargo space.

     Dimensions - 65/30/130 ft
     Cargo Capacity - 20 TC
     Armaments - Ingram laser system; Lance & Ferman Seek & Kill missile 
         system
     Maximum Velocity - 0.30
     Inservice Date - 3100 AD (Cowell & MgRath Shipyard, Lave)
     Maneuverability - CF 8
     Crew Number - 1 or 2
     Drive Motors - Kruger "lightfast" motors Irrikan ThruSpace
     Hull Stress Factor - T Ji 18 C-Holding M18
     Hyperspace Capability - Yes














                                  - 28 -






FER-DE-LANCE

A  Zorgon  Petterson Group (Zee Pee Gee) designed vessel favored  by  well-
heeled   bounty   hunter  and  freewheeling   business   corporations.    A 
sophisticated craft,  capable of both limited trading,  combat, and leisure 
function.   The  spacious  hull  is  mainly  given  over  to  sophisticated 
weaponry,  defences  and  navigation  equipment at  the  expense  of  cargo 
capacity.   Cabin  accommodation  is  large and  luxurious  with  extensive 
Owndirt  Inc.  recycling facilities,  encouraging extended live-in  periods 
(useful  whilst  pursuing a quarry).   Fuel scoop is  a  standard  fitting, 
ensuring complete self-sufficiency.

     Dimensions - 85/20/45 ft
     Cargo Capacity - 2 TC
     Armaments - Ergan Laser System; IFS Seek & Hunt missiles
     Maximum Velocity - 0.30
     Inservice Date - 3100 AD (Zorgon Petterson)
     Maneuverability - CF 5
     Crew Number - 12
     Drive Motors - Titronix Intersun Ionic for LT
     Hull Stress Factor - T Ji 10
     Hyperspace Capability - Yes





GECKO

Patented by Robert Bream, but not manufactured until Ace and Faber improved 
upon  the original design specifications after the death of  the  inventor.  
Later the design was stolen and widely circulated to a number of "backyard" 
workshops  who  produced  the ship in vast  numbers  with  many  individual 
variances to protect companies against lawsuits.   Mainly used as a single-
pilot combat craft, typically pirates.

     Dimensions - 12/40/65 ft
     Cargo Capacity - 3 TC
     Armaments - Ingram 1919 A4 laser; LM Homing missile
     Maximum Velocity - 0.30
     Inservice Date - 2852 AD (Ace & Faver HullWorks, Lerelace)
     Maneuverability - CF 7
     Crew Number - 1 or 2
     Drive Motors - BreamPulse Light XL
     Hull Stress Factor - T to 84-94 C-Holding JZ20
     Hyperspace Capability - Not available













                                  - 29 -






KRAIT

Small,  reliable one-man fighter,  common until the standardized version of 
the  Mamba  became available on the open market.   Several of  these  early 
Faulcon  deLacy  designed  craft may still be found in  service  in  remote 
areas,  but spare parts are no longer available and the need to cannibalize 
has reduced numbers still further in recent years.

     Dimensions - 80/20/90 ft
     Cargo Capacity - 10 TC
     Armaments - Ergon laser system
     Maximum Velocity - 0.30 Light Mach
     Inservice Date - 3027 AD (deLacy ShipWorks, ININES)
     Maneuverability - CF 8
     Crew Number - 1
     Drive Motors - deLacy Spinlonic ZX 14
     Hull Stress Factor - C-Holding A20-B4
     Hyperspace Capability - No





MAMBA

Fighter  which  grew  out of custom-built  primarily  designed  for  racing 
purposes  but  adopted  and  armed by pirates due to  its  high  speed  and 
maneuverability.   Cargo  space was added later when Raddlett  and  Rayburn 
Shipyards   (based  at  Reorte)  standardized  the  variences   and   began 
manufacturing the craft in large numbers.

     Dimensions - 55/12/65 ft
     Cargo Capacity - 10 TC
     Armaments - Ergon laser
     Maximum Velocity - 0.32
     Inservice Date - 3110 AD (Reorte Ship Federation)
     Maneuverability - CF 9
     Crew Number - 
     Drive Motors - Seeklight HV Thrust 
     Hull Stress Factor - TKi 10 C-Holding B100+
     Hyperspace Capability - No


















                                  - 30 -






MORAY STAR BOAT

Developed initially as a submarine flyingboat,  Marine Trench Co.  soon say 
the  possibilities for extending their operations into space and the  Moray 
SFB became the "Star Boat" after its ingenious adaptations were  completed.  
Aquatic space-faring races are the main users of this multi-purpose vessel, 
whose  hull  is  able to withstand the pressures of depths of  up  to  5500 
fathoms.   Standard fittings include: highpower seal locks, 2 torpedo tube/ 
single missile pods and flood-lock cabins for subaquatic life-forms.

     Dimensions - 65/25/60 ft
     Cargo Capacity - 7 TC
     Armaments - Geret Starseeker missile system
     Maximum Velocity - 0.25
     Inservice Date - 3028 AD
     Maneuverability - CF 4
     Crew Number - 6
     Drive Motors - Turbulen Quark Re-charger Mode 1287
     Hull Stress Factor - T Ko T24
     Hyperspace Capability - Yes





PYTHON

One  of  the larger trading vessels manufactured in Inera  Orbit  Space  by 
Whatt  and  Pritney  ShipConstruct.   Cabin accommodation  is  cramped  and 
spartan  in  contrast  to  facilities for  cargo  and  "alien  environment" 
transport.   Though slow and ponderous,  the craft has powerful CC-Voltaire 
shields and  Volt-Variscan Pulse lasers,  earning it the  nickname  of  the 
"space porcupine".   Not commonly attacked by pirate ships,  but a  popular 
craft for freebooters, usually used as a way-station and storage hulk.

     Dimensions - 130/40/80 ft
     Cargo Capacity - 100 TC
     Armaments - Volt-Variscan Pulse lasers
     Maximum Velocity - 0.20
     Inservice Date - 2700 AD (Whatt and Pritney ShipConstruct)
     Maneuverability - CF 3
     Crew Number - 20-30
     Drive Motors - 4 C40K V Ames Drive Exlon 76NN Model
     Hull Stress Factor - T(ensman) YO 20 C-Holding K21-31
     Hyperspace Capability - Yes














                                  - 31 -






ORBIT SHUTTLES

These  unarmed  and often unmanned craft are built under license  in  every 
planetary   system.    Based  on  a  prototype  developed  by   Saud-Kruger 
AstroDesign,  they  are  used for cargo ferrying between planet  and  space 
station,  but  can  be modified to hospital  ships,  or  orbiting  prisons.  
Favorite targets for small-time criminals,  because of their  instantaneous 
release  of  cargo canisters,  they are often followed  by  single  fighter 
patrol ships.

     Dimensions - 35/20/20 ft
     Cargo Capacity - 60 TC
     Armaments - None
     Maximum Velocity - 0.08
     Inservice Date - 2856 AD (Saud-Kruger AstroDesign)
     Maneuverability - CF 4
     Crew Number - 6
     Drive Motors - V & K 20.20 StarMat drive
     Hull Stress Factor - T Ko 28
     Hyperspace Capability - No





SIDEWINDER SCOUT SHIP

Designed  by  Faulcon deLacy and built in the Onrira Orbital  Shipyards  by 
Spalder  and Starblaze Inc.  to Galactic Navy specifications for  a  multi-
purpose  support craft.   Mainly used for atmosphere and planetary  surface 
scouting,   but  extensively  too  for  city-strafing,  reconnaissance  and 
infantry air support (and by pirates who favor speed and  elusiveness,  its 
primary  advantage).   Has  some interspatial  capability    not  including 
hyperspace, and must be carried through hyperspace by jump-capable vessels.  
Hull  is too small for the installation of fuel scoops,  or more  than  one 
missile pod.

     Dimensions - 35/15/65 ft
     Cargo Capacity - None
     Armaments - Dual 22-18 lasers; Seeker missiles
     Maximum Velocity - 0.37
     Inservice Date - 2982 AD (Onrira Orbital/Spalder & Starblaze)
     Maneuverability - CF 9
     Crew Number - 1
     Drive Motors - deLacy Spin Ionic MV
     Hull Stress Factor - Not available; C-Holding C50
     Hyperspace Capability - No












                                  - 32 -






THARGOID INVASION SHIPS

Though  most  of  the  Thargoid Space Fleet is  currently  engaged  by  the 
Galactic  Navy in Intergalactic Space,  a few of the smaller  battle  ships 
make occasional sorties into Human Space.   These ships are extremely  fast 
for  their  size  and invariably have ECM Systems (this  was  originally  a 
Thargoid  invention to counter Navy missiles,  subsequently copied  by  the 
Navy from captured Thargoid ships).
     Additionally,  most  Thargoid battle ships carry a few  small  remote-
controlled ships,  each equipped with a single pulse laser.   It is rumored 
that  the Galactic Navy are designing their own remote-controlled  fighter, 
and will pay well for Thargoid ones to study.

     Dimensions - 180/40/180 ft
     Cargo Capacity -
     Armaments - Widely varying.  Mountings available for most systems.
     Maximum Velocity - 0.20 LM
     Inservice Date - Uncertain
     Maneuverability - CF 6
     Crew Number - 150
     Drive Motors - Thargoid invention
     Hull Stress Factor - Uncertain
     Hyperspace Capability - Yes




TRANSPORTER

The  Lakon  Spaceways  MC15  QuikTransport Shuttle  is  the  most  commonly 
encountered  intermediate range shuttle,  with a range of 0.1LY and a  full 
HiGrav  Loading facility.   It can carry up to 100 passengers,  and  has  a 
cargo capacity of 10 tonnes undefined bulk.   Can land on asteroids,  space 
stations,  and can skim atmosphere, and touch down on land surfaces and all 
liquid surfaces except acid.

     Dimensions - 35/10/30
     Inservice Date - Unknown, but probably pre-2500 AD.  Known prototype
         built on spaceLink Shipyards, Mars orbit (Old Earth).




















                                  - 33 -






VIPER (POLICE SHIP)

Small,  highly  maneuverable  short range "hunter-killer",  the  Viper  was 
specifically  designed  for  GalCop  Space  Policing  purposes  by  Faulcon 
Manspace and are built under licence on all Medium Tech worlds.   The Viper 
is a single pilot craft,  but can carry up to ten humanoid  passengers.  It 
has no cargo space, but has a "tug" capability, and can tow a ship of up to 
140,000  MTS mass (including the Cobra Mk 3).   This popular ship  is  also 
carried by large freighter convoys, for defensive purposes.

     Dimensions - 55/80/50 ft
     Cargo Capacity - Zero
     Armaments - Ingram MegaBlast Pulse Laser; Seeker missiles
     Maximum Velocity - 0.32 LM
     Inservice Date - 2762 AD (Faulcon Manspace, Reorte)
     Maneuverability - High (CF 7.4)
     Crew Number - 1 (up to 10)
     Drive Motors - deLacy Super Thrust VC10
     Hull Stress Factor - Varies
     Hyperspace Capability - No





WORM CLASS LANDING CRAFT

A  small  landing  craft  carried on larger ships,  for  use  as  either  a 
lifeboat, or for landing parties.  Lightly armed, the Worm is occassionally 
employed  as  an  attack  and/or  decoy  craft  during  combat  conditions.  
Manufactured to specific requirements dependent upon the Mother  Ship,  the 
Worm is highly adaptable.

     Dimensions - 35/12/35 ft
     Cargo Capacity - None
     Armaments - Ingram Pulse laser
     Maximum Velocity - 0.23
     Inservice Date - 3101 AD
     Maneuverability - CF 6
     Crew Number - 2
     Drive Motors - Seeklight HV Thrust
     Hull Stress Factor - T Ki 10
     Hyperspace Capability - No














                                                                      rmh

                                  - 34 -






                                PILOT'S LOG


Date:                                          Filename:

Name:                                          Status Combat/Legal:

Planets Traversed:







Current Equipment:  




Purchases and Prices Paid:

Item/Planet         Av.price        Price paid         Quantity ordered












Trading Profits:

Kills:

Credits:

SPECIAL NOTES:

















                                  - 35 -






                                PILOT'S LOG


Date:                                          Filename:

Name:                                          Status Combat/Legal:

Planets Traversed:







Current Equipment:  




Purchases and Prices Paid:

Item/Planet         Av.price        Price paid         Quantity ordered












Trading Profits:

Kills:

Credits:

SPECIAL NOTES:

















                                  - 36 -

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

	   THE DARK WHEEL - THE ELITE NOVELLA
 
 
CHAPTER ONE 
 
From the moment that the trading ship, Avalonia, slipped its orbital berth above
the planet Lave, and began to manoeuvre for the hyperspace jump point, its
measureable life-span, and that of one of its two-man crew, was exactly eighteen
minutes.The space station gently span away into the shadows and the small
Ophidian class vessel shuddered as its motors angled it round towards the
faraway jump.  The planet Lave, below, rotated in blue-green splendour.  There
were storms moving across the Paluberion Sea, six great whorls of pink and white
cloud.  they were approaching the continental mass that was FirstFall, and
promising a bleak and wet few days to the swathes of forest and the deep,
snaking valleys that cut through the rugged land.  The cities of both Humankind
and Lavian glittered among the verdant blanket below, like bright shards of
glass.  Watching the lush world from his seat at the astrogation console, Alex
Ryder expressed an audible sigh of regret that he had not been allowed down to
the world himself.  next to him, fingers moving expertly over the keys of the
trader's ManOp console, his father grinned.  Jason Ryder knew well enough the
frustration of only being allowed to observe a rich and fabled world like Lave
from orbit.  he had been planetside once, an unforgettable experience...But the
rules and regulations of the Galactic Co-operative of Worlds were strict - and
sensible.  Lave, like any other planet, was not a holiday resort, not a
curiosity.  it was a living, evolving world, and there were folk down below to
whom that world was everything that Old earth had once been to the Human race.
Protection.  Mother.  Home.  Another time, another year, Alex thought.  You
earned your visit to Lave, and he had hardly begun his professional life.  he
still had so much to learn.  The Ryders had been a trading family for three
generations.  it had begun with Ben Ryder, who had traded almost exclusively
using shot-up pirate ships.  Ben had lived life on the edge, and, one day, one
night, one star year, he had not returned.  Out in the void between the stars
his grave was as remote as it was private, and would probably never be found.
his son, and his grandson - who was Jason Ryder - had follow the family
business.  Alex would soon have to make the final decision:  whether to
sacrifice his life to shuttling cargo between the worlds of the Galactic
Co-operative, or to train for a different profession.  Let's be clear about
trading.  trading between worlds is no game for a youngster with ideas of
getting rich quick.  you can spend a lifetime carrying food, machinery and
textiles, and at the end of that life you'll have enough saved up to buy you a
patch of coastal land on an Earth-type world, and spend the rest of your days in
quiet, isolated comfort.  That's all.  A lifetime of sweat and combat for an
orbital shuttle, a home, and the clear blue of an alien sea at your doorstep.
If you want more, there are ways of getting it:  narcotics, slaves, zoo animals,
weapons, political refugees ...trade in any of these things and wealth will
tumble around you.  And corsairs, and privateers, and pirates...And the police.
The strain of the years of honest trading was already telling on Jason Ryder,
but he had invested wisely, and this small, cargo-carrying, pleasure yacht was
his pride and joy.  he could get away from the trade lanes for a while (although
he always respected the trader maxim that 'an empty hold means an empty head',
and never travelled freight-less; today he was carrying thrumpberry juice, an
exotic flavouring).  He could show his son what space was really like, and whet
the lad's appetite ...  or let him see that a life in hard vacuum was one of the
hardest lives of all.  For his part, Alex ryder would need a lot more
convincing.  he was a tall, fair-haired young man, wiry and athletic.  He was
atmo-surfing champion on the Ryder homeworld, Ontiat, and very bright.  Like all
young men of his age he was reluctant to switch his status from that of student
to professional, with all that that meant in terms of settling with one
particular girl, one job, and beginning to plan for when, eventually, he would
buy his own land.  He still had a year to decide, a year of surfing, free-fall
baseball, cloud barbecues, hi-falling, partner selection and Sim-Combat.  He was
in no hurry.  Except that he loved space.  Loved the flash of the sun on
duralium hulls, the clutter and confusion of the space ports.  Loved the idea o
other worlds, of exploration, of path-finding.  The voice of SysCon, which
controlled all traffic flow in Lave's orbit- space, murmured softly, 'Avalonia,
make a four-minute drift-flight to Faraway jump point.' 'Understood', Alex
called back, and adjusted the auto accordingly.  His father sat back and smiled,
his job done for the moment.  SysCon said, 'Enter Faraway jump along channel two
seven, at forty-five orient.''Affirmed,' Alex said, and his father rolled the
ship along its central axis, ready for the dangerous hyperspace transit.
Everything looked good.  On the rear monitor, where the planet shone brilliantly
as it slowly moved through the heavens, a dark shadow drifted into vision:
another ship, lining up for the Faraway jump.  It was quite normal.  Alex took
no notice, more concerned about the impending transit through hyperspace.  His
father scrutinised the other vessel for a moment, the relaxed.  He had no way of
knowing that he only had fourteen minutes left alive.  Making a Faraway jump in
a system as complex and crowded as Lave is no simple business.  A hundred eyes
are watching you for the slightest mistake.  Make a mistake in orbit-space and
the next time you go to dock at one of the world's Coriolis space stations a big
NOT WELCOME sign might flash in the vacuum before you.  You slip your C-berth
under the instruction of Station Space Monitor.  Perhaps twenty ships are doing
the same.  You go when it's safe.  You rotate, accelerate, decelerate and spin
to the absolute second, both of time and arc.  That way you get clear without
two thousand tons of duralium trader rammed into your hyperspace jets.  It isn't
over.  Now you're under supervision of HSA, Home Space Authority, and they'll
jockey you safely about among the traders, and the yachts, and the ferries, and
the shuttles, and the star-liners, and the arrow-shaped police patrol ships.
All of these vessels slip and slide about you, streaks of silver in the
darkness, flashing green and blue lights, sudden walls of grey metal that pass
across your bows, winking yellow warning beacons.  You move through this chaos
and a new voice begins to call for attention.  Now you're with the Faraway
Orientation Systems Controller; FOSC - or SysCon - sets you up for the big jump.
You're going to cover maybe seven light years in a few minutes, and you might
think that's a lot of space to get lost in, but that isn't how it works.
Faraway is a tunnel, like any other tunnel.  Inside that tunnel is the realm
called Witch-Space, a magic place, a place where the normal rules of the
universe don't necessarily work.  And every few thousand par-secs along the
Witch-Space tunnel there are monitoring satellites, and branch lines, and stop
points, and rescue stations; and passing by all of these are perhaps a hundred
channels, a hundred 'lines' for ships to travel, each one protected against the
two big dangers of hyperspace travel:  atomic reorganization, and time
displacement.  Jump on your own through hyperspace, across more than half a
light year, and you'll be lucky to make the same universe, let alone your
destination.  You might emerge from Witch-Space turned inside out (which is not
a pretty sight).  You might be stretched in all the wrong angles, and although
the ship keeps travelling, that jelly mass of broken bone and flesh inside the
cabin is you.  According to legend, you might come through okay and breathe a
sigh of relief, only to go into Earth orbit and wonder why that big lizard, with
the teeth and the long tail and the green scales is roaring up at you, and
warning you off his nice Jurassic patch of prehistoric desert.  To go Faraway is
a killer, unless you obey the rules.  So for a few minutes, on that fateful day,
Alex ryder was content to let the robot voices of SysCon guide his family's ship
through the space lanes, towards the jump point for the planet Leesti.  He
relaxed, beside his father, and watched the bustle of the space port.  The
shadow behind them, the ship that was following their path towards Faraway, was
a Cobra class cargo freighter.  No-one knew how or when the designation of
space-going vessels had been linked to the names of snakes.  The Ryder's own
vessel was a relatively harmless Ophidion, capable of two hyperspace jumps,
armed very basically, set up, really, only to destroy imminent dangers, like
asteroids, meteoroids, or 'crazy craft', the name given to vessels that were out
of control, or ridden by juveniles out for kicks.  The Cobra was a bigger vessel
by far.  A common trading ship, most Cobras are buried beneath the weaponry and
defences that their hard-bitten, tough-talking captains have accrued.  And with
good reason...  To be a trader is to be two things:  dangerous,and at risk.
Dangerous because to survive as a trader you have to know your weapons and how
to use them in space combat you need to be able to recognise a pirate, or an
anarchist, or a Thargoid invader, or a police trap when you might be carrying
any one of a thousand prohibited materials.  nd at risk for the same reason.  A
juicy Cobra, weighed down with minerals or rare textiles, or furs, or ore, is as
tasty a target for a freebooter as any in the Galaxy.  To be a trader means to
shoot first and pray that you've read the warning signs alright, and that your
victim was a pirate.  Make a mistake and not even two shells of time-stressed
duralium and a belly full of missiles is going to save you from the vipers.
Vipers.  Police ships.  Small, fast, deadly.  And most particularly, tenacious.
The pilot is a man, certainly, but kill the man and the ship will keep coming at
you.  Kill the ship and it's missile will keep coming at you.  Kill the missile
and watch for the shadow.  When a viper bites, it clings.  Eleven
minutes...'There's a sight you'll not often see...' His father's words broke
through Alex's silent, concentrated study of the planet they were leaving.  To
the right, running a parallel course towards the Faraway tunnel, was an
odd-shaped ship, with powerful lights flickering on and off.  It was catching
the sun and Alex could see how it was slowly spinning about it's central axis.
Fish-like fins opened and closed.  Across it's sleek hull a rapid pattern of
coloured lights rippled.  A Moray.  A subaqua vessel, designed for both space
and undersea voyaging.  The Moray was rare ship indeed to see in space,
especially about to undertake a hyperspace transit.  On worlds like Regiti and
Aona, where the only land was the tips of volcanoes, rising above the oceans,
the Moray was both freighter and public transport, a vital ship-link between the
undersea cities that were developing in such hostile environments.  The Moray's
frantic colour signalling ceased.  Alex noticed that his father was watching the
animalistic display (the coding had been developed from the signalling of a
terrestrial aquatic creature, the squid) with a frown on his face.  'Something
up?' Jason shrugged.  'Not sure.  Probably not'.  Alex watched the Moray with
renewed interest, then turned back to the rear view, where the Cobra had nudged
a few kilometres closer.  'Shall we warn him to stay back?' Jason shook his
head.  For the first time Alex realised that his father had been as aware of the
trader as he, and had been studying it curiously for some minutes.  There was a
tension on the Avalonia's bridge that was unusual and unpleasant.  Something
wasn't right.  Alex had no idea what, but he sensed it powerfully.  Something
was not going according to routine.  Then the go-signal for entry to the Faraway
tunnel flashed on, accompanied by a gentle audio prompt.  And as it did so, the
Avalonia's life expectancy had shrunk to just nine minutes.  Around the entry
point to Witch-Space is always to be found the biggest cluster of transit
vessels, most of them moored in groups at orbital buoys while mechanics and
repairmen crawl over them, checking and servicing their external systems.  At
such a point in any advanced system like lave you'll see every ship of the line,
every type, subtype and artificially mocked-up version of every snake-ship ever
built.  As they approached the jump, Alex practised ship identification, a
crucial talent in any space-faring profession.  The unarmed, unmanned orbit
shuttles were easy enough to spot, as they ferried cargo all around the system.
He noticed two Asps, Navy ship, small manouevrable and deadly, well protected
against attack, and with highly advanced military weapons systems.  He also saw
a single Krait, the so called StarStriker, a small, one-man ship much favoured
by pathfinders and mercenaries.  To his right, space-docked, and still unloading
her passengers, was the immense, cylindrical mass of an Anaconda, a massive
freighter that had been adapted to passenger transport.  It was an ugly ship,
and it's yawning ram-scoop gave it the appearance of being a squat, blind
creature with it's mouth disgustingly agape.  The catalogue was endless.  Boa
class cruisers; Pythons; the bounty hunters' favourite, the Fer-de-lance, packed
out with weapons, and no doubt decked out inside like a palace; landing craft
called Worms; Mambas; Sidewinders ...  large craft and small, all winking
brightly and reflecting sunlight in brilliant blue-grey sheens.  And of course,
the were advertising droidships, their catchy light displays blinking out
information about ROHAN'S REAL EARTH ALE WITH HONEY, or KETTLE'S CLONE-YOUR-OWN
FUNGAL CURES.  Or even offering the 'last real food before Witch-Space', small
restaurant ships designed to dock and supply instant nourishment (PRIEST'S
PERFECT PROTOPOLYPS, TUTTLE'S TASTY THERAPSBLADDERS) to space-weary travellers.
'Here we go ...  Hang on to your seat...' Jason Ryder always said this, and Alex
always fell for it.  he tensed up as if the ship were about to plunge over a
gravity roller.  In fact, the entry to Witch-Space was accompanied by an almost
negligable accelerative surge, a moment's dizziness, and then the spectacular
sight of the stars brightening, spreading out and suddenly streaking in
multi-coloured circular patterns, so that the ship seemed to be passing down a
spinning tube.  Almost as soon as the surge of acceleration had come it had
gone.  The ship drifted into 'Witch Light', in the non-place in space and time.
It was crossing the void between stars in seconds, but for those seconds it was
in a twilight world whose existence was beyond imagination.  They say the
Witch-Space is haunted.  Maybe that's why the call it 'witch'.  Time turns all
around, and atoms turn inside out, and gravity waves billow up, and things move
there, lifeforms, or shadows, or atoms, or galaxies, who knows?  No-one has ever
stopped and gone outside to find out.  Only robot remotes exist there, switching
stations, monitors, rescue Droids and the like.  Whatever lives in Witch-Space,
in the Faraway tunnels, will remain a mystery always.  But there are ghosts
there, the ghosts of early ships that went in to Faraway, and didn't come out
again.  Ghosts...  And shadows.  The shadow of a snake.  A Cobra ...  Rising
over them ...  'What in God's name...?' Jason Ryder had gone whiter than white
light.  Trapped in Witch-Space, there was nothing he could do to out-manoeuvre
the other vessel.  Alex said, 'He doesn't know the rules.  Perhaps it's a rookie
pilot-' 'Perhaps,' his father said.  Jason Ryder's eyes never left the scanners.
His face had beaded with sweat.  Alex watched the shadow of the Cobra...
Well-equipped ...  a fuel-scoop, missile silos, extra cargo holds, the squat
dome of an energy bomb housing ...  a rich ship indeed and a deadly one...
'They can't be intending to attack us.'They hell they can't!' Three minutes...
And they came out of Witch-Space!  Immediately, Jason's hands began to fly over
the key console.  The Avalonia surged forward, rotating on it's long axis.  The
planet Leesti was a small, greenish disc in the far distance.  Alex saw his
father arm the two missiles that the Avalonia carried, then reached to rest his
hand on the multiple laser-trigger.  It was a pirate then.  And as Alex came to
accept the inevitability of combat, his mouth went dry and his mind sharpened.
He had never been in combat before, not for real, only in the SimTrainer.  he
had heard his father talk about it, of course.  And combat did not sound
glorious...  A pirate ship, disguised as a trader, pursuing its victim into
Witch- Space itself...for their cargo of...  Thrumpberry flavouring?  An uneasy
voice whispered in Alex's mind.  This was untypical behaviour for a freebooter.
They normally waited at the edge of planetary systems, watching for their prey
with long-distance scanners, picking and choosing carefully.  Pirates could be
found everywhere, of course, though rarely in space around Corporate State
worlds, or Democracies (the police were too efficient).  Planets run by
anarchistic or feudal governments were a pirate's favourite haunt.  This
behaviour was wrong...  Not a pirate.  Alex looked from the slowly rotating
planet to the grim, grey features of his father.  They were a long way from
safety.  'What the hell are we up against?' 'Put on a RemLok and get to the
escape pod,' Jason Ryder murmured.  'Do It!' 'I'll say and fight.' 'The hell you
will.  Do as I say,' As he spoke, Jason thrust a small, black face-mask - the
remote-space-locator - at his son.  The first missiles struck the Avalonia's
shields, and Jason punched the launch buttons on his own defences.  The small
ship veered and strained as he looped it in an escape run, activating its ECM as
the Cobra launched a second wave of missiles.  But through the brightness the
sombre grey shape of the killer came on...  It happened so fast, then, that
afterwards Alex was uncertain as to what exactly had happened.  The duelling
ships span and circled in towards the planet.  Space around them blazed silently
as their weapons struck and were deflected.  Then the whole universe rocked.
Air screeched into the void.  the lights in the Avalonia blinked and dimmed.
Warning lights shot on across the console:  laser temperature in the red,
screens down, energy low, cargo jettisoned, cabin temperature dropping...  In
the same moment of the Avalonia's death, Alex Ryder found himself being struck
by his father, the remlok mask being forced into place about his eyes, nose and
mouth.  Then his whole body was physically manhandled into the escape pod.  The
ship shuddered and screamed.  Fuel spilled into the void.  Father and son faced
each other for a last moment, each watching the other through a mist of tears
and confusion...  'I don't understand...' Alex screamed above the noise of the
dying ship, meaning:  Who's trying to kill us?  'Raxxla!' Jason said.  'Remember
Raxxla!' Then, as he pushed Alex back into the cramped escape pod, he shouted,
'Remember me, Alex!  I wouldn't have wished this on you.  Raxxla!' The escape
pod was jettisoned.  Alex tumbled.  The sleek shape of the Avalonia was above
him, and then just white light - White heat.  Cold space!  In a second it had
gone, the ship, his father, a part of his life - obliterated by a single burst
of fire from the hovering shape of the pirate.  And as Alex watched, so a yellow
tongue of fire licked towards the tumbling escape pod.  He felt heat, then pain,
then cold...  The tiny survival vehicle was blasted apart, sparkling fragments
falling towards the green world of Leesti.  Alex hit space, arms flailing, mouth
opened, conciousness and life draining from him with every second...

                         -----------

                         CHAPTER TWO
 
In space, everyone can hear you scream...  As long, that is, as you're equipped
with a RemLok survival mask.  An instant after Alex Ryder hit the hard vacuum, a
skin of plasFibre had been shot across his body from nozzles on the face piece,
keeping him warm against the cold, tightening and protecting him, securing him
against the void.  The oxygen flow in his body was cut off to all but his heart
and brain.  Needle-doses of adrenalin and somnokie were held ready, just within
the skin area of his mouth, ready to alert or depress his body functions
according to circumstances.  And the RemLok screamed through space for help.  It
was a standard survival device, an instantly recognisable distress call
indicating that it was being sent out from a small, remotely located, dying
body.  The alarm screeched out on forty channels, shifting wavelength within
each channel four times a second.  One hundred and sixty chances to catch
attention...  A cumbersome Boa class cruiser, loaded down with industrial
machinery, slowed its departure run from Leesti and turned to scan space for the
source of the signal...  Two police vipers came streaking from their patrol
sector, near the sun, scanning for the body in trouble...  An adapted Moray
Starboat, a vast glowing yellow star on its hull - the sign of a hospital ship -
came chugging out of the darkness...  Messages from ships to both the planet and
its ring of Coriolis stations were abruptly broken as the split second message
came streaming through.  TV programmes were interrupted, the screen disolving
into a permanently recorded display of the space-grid location of the RemLok.
Every advertising space module changed its garish display to flash, in brilliant
green, the same information.  in the orbit-space around Leesti, a million heads
turned starwards.  That split second of panic, that moment's cry of distress,
was a sound they knew too well to ignore, and were too frightened of to take for
granted.  Within twenty seconds, two autoremotes, tiny vessels just big enough
to carry an hour's oxygen, one dose each of forty drugs, and a variety of other
stimulants, were hovering around Alex Ryder's spinning body.  One of them shot
out a stabilising cable and dragged itself to his corpse.  Blinking through its
solitary monitor, it hovered over his face like a squat, legless, dachshund
hound and pumped adrenalin, oxygen and glucose into his bloodstream.  Alex
opened his eyes and panicked slightly.  The autoremote calmed him down with a
quick pumpsurge of tetval.  The robot's voice whispered in his ears,'Brandy?
Scotch?  Vodka?  I am equipped with a full range of miniature stimulants to make
the waiting easier.' 'What ...  happened ...  ship?  ...  Avalonia ...  ' he
gasped through the tight face mask.  The autoremote blinked at him
sympathetically,'Brandy, then,' and hit Alex with two shots of Qutirian
SynCognac.

An hour later he was aboard the Moray hospital vessel, in parked orbit above the
grey-green face of the world Leesti.  Burns to his hands and face had been taken
care of.  Minor blood vessels that had ruptured in his skin had been knitted
back together.  he was bruised, stunned, but essentially fit physically.  The
image of the ship exploding had begun to haunt him, however.  He stood by the
wide, sloping window of his hospital room, staring out across the bright of
space to the slowly rotating world below, watching the flash and tumble of
shuttles, and small freighters as they either glided up from worldDown, or
struck the atmosphere on their descent, leaving brief, brilliant flares of red
in the thin planetary atmosphere.  Wherever he looked he could see the shadow of
the Cobra, rising up in the Witchlight, a great killer beast, closing on its
prey.  And his father's face ...  The sudden alarm, the sudden anger, and yet
...  and yet Jason Ryder had known.  His grieving, mind-stunned son just knew
that his father had been more aware of the danger than he had let on.  It had
been in his face, in the tension in the cabin, in the slow, deliberate words
that he had spoken during the approach run to hyperspace.  Jason had known that
his life was within danger.  He had been ready for it, ready to save his son in
the event of attack ...  It made no sense.  But for the moment Alex felt only
loss, the loss of a man he had loved.  Both his parents were gone, now.  His
homeworld would seem an empty, uninviting place.  Behind him, the door opened
softly and the grey-suited figure of a nurse appeared.  She reproved him mildly
for being out of bed, but seemed please by his apparently calm mental state.
There followed what seemed like a constant stream of visitors.  First the
doctor, scanning him for tension and psychic repression.  The medic was not
pleased.  he more or less said, 'Young man, your father is dead and it would do
you no harm to shed a few tears.  Its all there, all the grief, all the sadness.
It'll do you no good to deny it.' 'I'll grieve for my father,' Alex said back
angrily, coldly.  'I'll grieve among the ashes of the pirate that killed him.
And not until.' 'Will you indeed.' Yes,' Alex stated defiantly.  'I will.
Indeed.'

After the doctor had gone, the man from the Galactic Medical Co- operative came,
fussily checking up on Alex's medical insurance, making sure that he was covered
for all aspects of the treatment, including his Faraway transit home.  Then the
police, two lean-faced men, wearing the grey cloaks and silver waistcoats of the
Narcotics Investigation department.  What cargo had the Avalonia been carrying?
Why would a pirate be so interested in him as to follow him to a Corporate State
world?  Had his father ever transported drugs?  Firearms?  Slaves?  What about
alien substances:  Manjooza, fear glands, Marswurt?  What was said in the
moments before destruction?  Would he recognise the ship again?  What were its
markings?  Alex told them everything he could remember.  Everything he'd seen.
Everything he'd heard ...  Except for the fact that his father had clearly known
the danger.  And except for the word Raxxla.  The police left.  they were not
satisfied.  Alex had just received his solo pilot's license, so he could make
his own way back to his homesystem, but he should notify them of what route he
was taking.  Raxxla...  Alex watched them go, their viper a slim, evil-looking
ship as it rolled and sped away from the hospital vessel.  His mood matched the
dim- lit room, matched the gloom-grey of the storms that were building up on the
world below.  Leesti's oceans looked wild and cold, now, its clouds great
charcoal coloured swirls of anger above the ragged, mountainous land.  Raxxla.
What could it be?  What could it mean?  At midnight, still resting and
recouperating (care of the Leesti Medical Authority), a small green light winked
on in his room.  alex, still awake, frowned then realised that he was being
monitored.  What is it?' he asked the empty room, and a nurse's voice whispered,
'There's a holoFac message coming through for you.  They've requested a
tightbeam.  Will you receive?' Alex sat up in bed.  No-one knew he was here.
Did they?  He frowned and said, 'Sure.' Will you accept the charge against your
CR?' Curiouser and curiouser.  Since he was broke, and without credit until he
sorted out his GMC insurance, it was easy for him to say, 'Yes.' In the middle
of his room the air suddenly shimmered white, small bright particles flying off
in all directions around the gradually defined shape of a man.  He was tall, but
slightly stooped.  As the whiteness of the image resolved into colour, the
whiteness of the man stayed.  His hair was long and snowy, his beard ragged.
His face had a touch of colour.  His eyes were small, gleaming points among the
wrinkles.  He was smiling.  he wore a tattered trader's uniform, and one arm
hung limp by his side.  even his boots were worn down, and the toes were split.
The handlaser at his side had seen the same better days as the rest of his
equipment.  'You the Ryder Boy?' this apparition of run-down age asked.  the
voice creaked, a gruff, battered tone, the voice of a man who had breathed hard
vacuum.  'That's me.  Alex Ryder.  And you?' Alex climbed out of bed and went to
stand before the life-sized holoFac.  The old man watched him, and chewed.  Then
he spat.  The gobbet of stained spittle seemed to fly straight towards Alex's
shoulder and he winced and jerked slightly to one side, before realising that
nothing could travel into real space from the holo.  'You don't remember me,'
the old man said.  'That's clear enough.  But I remember you.' Give me a name.'
'Rafe Zetter.  Trader of old.  Traded with your father for many years, till we
parted company on account of a certain issue which, you might say ...  caused a
difference of opinion between us.' 'Slaves,' Alex said quickly.  He remembered
Rafe, now.  But what had happened to the man?  he was old before his time.  He
was the same age as Jason Ryder would have been, but looked twenty years more.
'Slaves is right,' Rafe said.  'I ran my life on the edge of a Viper's sting
trader parlance for 'one jump ahead of the law'.  'But my the time I indulged
that little whim, my ass was hard iron.  I somehow made it to hell 'n' back.
That's where I am now.'In hell?' Broke.' Alex nodded, picking up slowly on the
trader slang.  An 'iron ass' was a ship that was well enough defended - shields,
missiles, and lasers - to make a skim run through any system at all, even an
anarchist's paradise like Sotiqu.  All hell and then some would come at you if
you tried to trade in such a chaotic system.  'Hell 'n' back' meant that Rafe
had tasted the good life, bought with the profits of his illegal trading, but
that it had all gone wrong.  It always went wrong.  Rafe said, 'I was damn sorry
to hear about Jason.  A good man.  A good friend of old, and a man I still
respect.' 'It didn't happen but eight hours ago,' Alex said coldly.  'How the
hell did you get to hear about it.' Rafe Zetter chuckled, then spat again, and
again Alex couldn't help ducking.  The Spittle vanished at the holoFac's edge
and Alex felt a chill of irritation.  'You got your father's temper, young Alex.
Maybe you've even got some of his skills.' Answer my question, old man.  How do
you manage to know about my father?  How did you find me?' Watching him from the
holo, Rafe chewed, smiled and considered.  Alex tensed, waiting for the next
high-velocity spit-transmission.  Rafe said, 'I repeat, Alex.  I had great
respect for Jason Ryder.  For what he was, and what he was doing.' 'He was a
good man,' Alex said.  'And an honest trader.' 'He was a damn sight more than
that,' Rafe said loudly, and spat.  Alex dodged.  The ghostly holoFac image
shimmered and blurred slightly.  'What does that mean?' Rafe Zetter leaned
forward so that his grizzled features seemed almost able to kiss the younger
man.  'He was a combateer, Alex.  One of the best.  No way should he have died
like he did...' 'My father was a trader, not a combateer,' Alex said, startled
and disturbed by what Rafe was implying.  'Guess again, sonny.' But it sickened
him to fire shots in anger.' 'Maybe,' Rafe said drily.  'But it didn't stop him.
How else do you think he made it as a trader all those years?  Dammit Alex, even
if your cargo is sour-cream and pickles there's someone going to try and take it
from you.  Your father was a combateer of the highest calibre ...' Alex
swallowed heavily, staring at the quizzical features of old Rafe Zetter.  'The
highest calibre ...?' rafe nodded.  'That's right, Alex,' he said softly.  'You
can be deadly, you can be dangerous, and you can end up as pet food in orbit
around a dog's ass-of-a-world like Isveve.  But if you're elite, and you die,
then there's a reason for your death ...' What was this old man saying?  Elite?
An elite combateer?  Alex's head span.  He knew all about the space pilots who'd
earned that title, of course.  few of them did.  To be elite in combat was to be
...  well, as near invincible as made no odds.  A great many pilots were
'dangerous'; you didn't last long as a trader if you weren't.  Many more had
earned the classification 'deadly'.  So had a lot of mercenaries.  So had a lot
of pirates.  But elites.  Few and far between.  And his father, Jason Ryder, had
been elite, and none of his family had ever known!  Jason was one of the very
best.  You probably never saw his ship, but it was like a fortress.  He traded
places that most of us would have had nightmares about.' Rafe shook his head
admiringly.  'One of the best.  A man of the highest calibre ...' His gaze
hardened on Alex.  'The question is ...  Can you be the same?' What makes you
doubt it?' 'Jason never said anything about you.  I guess he was trying to
protect you.  The trouble is that it gives me nothing to go on:  you're going to
avenge your father's death - I can tell that from the look of you, and your
tone, and your anger - but for all I know, that'll just mean one more Ryder will
be stardust before he even manages to target a missile.' Not liking Rafe
Zetter's tone, Alex said bitterly, 'I've done hours of Simcombat.  I score
highly...' Rafe laughed and spat voluminously, then became serious.  Alex,
there's something I've got to know.  Maybe you're going to end up -' 'Pet food
in orbit around Isveve!' 'Yeah.  Maybe that.  The only person who knew your
talents was your father.  Tell me, Alex, and tell me true, now ...  Did he say
anything to you ...  you know ...  in the moments before he died?  Did he
indicate anything, or say anything?' 'He said a lot,' Alex murmured, and felt a
strong pang of grief as he remembered the look in his father's eyes, the
greyness of his cheeks, and his desperate words, remember me, Alex...  'I think
he knew he was going to die.  The last thing he said was the word Raxxla.  I
don't know what that is.  An alien, I guess ...' Rafe smiled, shaking his head.
Suddenly there was a brilliant sparkle in his eyes:  'Raxxla's no alien, Alex.
It's a ghost world.  A planet.  A legend ...' He hesitated, staring quizzically
at the younger man through the distant link between them, 'Jason really said
that to you?' Alex nodded.  'Moments before ...  It was the last thing he said.'
'Then he knew,' Rafe said with a nod.  'And that's good enough for me.  Alex,
get your frail shell to Tionisla and take a visitor's shuttle to the orbital
cemetery there.  Say you've come to see the grave of Starpilot Fleischer.  And
take a good look around.  You do that, boy.  Tomorrow.  I'll be waiting for
you.' Waiting to do what?' Rafe chuckled.  'How're you going to hunt a Cobra?
You going to hitch- hike?  Or use a big stick?  You'll need a ship.  Hunt like
with like.  get to the wreckplace at Tionisla.  I know just the vehicle you
need.  Don't speak to anyone.  Just get to Tionisla.'But - 'Au'voir, Alex!' And
Rafe Zetter spat for the last time before the holoFac faded.  Alex didn't
flinch.  Something whistled past his ear and struck the far wall behind him.

                         -------------

                         CHAPTER THREE
 
The best way to see the wreckplace at Tionisla is to approach it from the Sun (a
reasonably safe thing to do since Tionisla, being a Democracy has few pirates in
its system).  Tionisla itself is a bright yellow world, and the cemetery is
always between the planet and its star.  As you fly close, the whole strange
graveyard seems to be expanding from the circle of the world behind.  The first
thing you see is a shimmering, silver disc, a double spiral of tiny bright
points.  It slowly turns:  it's a galaxy in miniature, with the same intense
blur of light at its centre, because here is where the biggest tombs are to be
found.  Come closer and soon you can see that the stars in this galaxy are
markers, great lumps of metal, heavily inscribed with the words and symbols of a
thousand religions.  The cemetery is a bizarre and moving sight.  The markers
are rarely less than a thousand feet across.  There are chrome-alloy crosses,
titanium Stars of David, duralium henges, and all the strange symbollic shapes
of the worlds, and the minds and the faiths that have come to die in this Star
traveller's special place.  Tethered below this vast, rotating mausoleum is the
dodecahedral shape of a 'Dodo' class space station, the home of the Cemetery
Authorities.  Here you go through security checks and get your visitor's visa.
And as you stand in the queue, staring up through the translucent ceiling of the
Customs Hall, you can see the battered, broken ships of many of the dead, still
attached to the silent tomb that contains the body.  It's a good enough reason
to come to Tionisla.  There are pickings aplenty among the wrecks.  The
treasures of centuries might be revealed by pressing the right panel on the
right cube of black, alien metal as it floats silently by.  Or maybe not
treasure, just the tomb's defences...  A pit with a laser.  A robot guardian
with knives where its hands should be.  A hyperspace vacuum that sucks you in
and throws you out into another time.  You tread carefully among the wrecks in
orbit about Tionisla.  The creatures buried here - human and alien - had money
enough to buy these prized resting places, and more than enough wealth to
protect their property after death from the mercenary fingers of bounty hunters.
Formalities completed, his newly issued pilot's license checked, Alex Ryder was
given a small tour-ship, and oddly shaped and cumbersome vessel.  He drifted
quickly among the tombs, seeking the resting place of Starpilot Fleischer,
following co-ordinates on the ship's cemetery plan.  He soon found what he was
looking for.  Whoever Fleischer had been, he was monstrously egocentric:  his
tomb was a great crystalline structure, a puff-ball of diamond-bright needles,
literally hundreds of feet across.  His body, dressed in the red uniform of an
elite combateer, hovered in stasis at the centre of this great construct,
illuminated by focused light from the sun.  Tethered to the simple monument of
the grave next to this was the battered, blistered shape of a Cobra class ship,
its insignia still proudly displayed, but all its vital equipment, its
fuel-scoop, its extra cargo bays, its aft missile and laser banks removed.  Alex
stared at it.  It looked nothing like the Cobra that had destroyed his father's
ship.  That vessel had been bristling with all the extra things that good money
could buy, to defend and to attack, and to make the trading game an easier
prospect for the elite trader.  A light on the Cobra winked on.  Alex blinked,
then looked again.  Sure enough, a small, red light was flashing on and off, a
brief sequence of code.  LAND ON DOR PL 'Land on the dorsal plate' - That was
clear enough.  Alex manoeuvred his tiny craft above the arrow shape of the
Cobra, and touched it gently onto the heat-blistered hull.  He looked guiltily.
Touching monuments wasn't permitted and the cemetery was patrolled by Kraits,
small and deadly security craft, with instructions to blast away any man, woman
or child seen tampering with a mausoleum...  But the graveyard was huge, and the
shadows of the great tombs transferred this miniature world of the dead into a
place of hide-outs, and shifting, occasional safety.  An entry port opened, and
a green light quickly blinked the message 'Come aboard'.  Alex flew the
tour-ship into the hull space and when he got the 'pressure green' signal
stepped out and walked cautiously towards the main control area.  He opened the
sliding door and blinked for a moment at the bright control displays and
scanners.  Ahead of him, the main screen was wide, and filled with a view of
Fleischer's crystal tomb.  Silhouetted against the gleaming brightness of the
crystal was the shape of a man, wearing a full space suit.  One hand rested on
the navigation console, the other hovered above the laser button.  I'm aboard,'
Alex said, and walked up behind the silent pilot.  The man made no movement,
said nothing.  For a moment Alex stood beside him, staring out into the
wreckplace, at the slowly shifting monuments, at the stars glimpsed in the
background.  Then he turned to greet his host.  And nearly died of shock, taking
a quick horrified step backwards!  It was the drawn, mummified face of a corpse
that half looked up at him from behind its visor, the rictus smile of death
stretching wide across its lips.  'Do you think we should take him with us?' a
voice asked from across the cabin.  Alex started again with suprise and watched
the figure which emerged from the shadows.  'As a sort of totem.  A lucky
charm.' Alex tried to smile, but neither relief nor the new arrival's charming
grin could relax him enough.  too much had happened too fast, and he stood
rooted to the spot, watching as the woman came over to him.  She was quite
small.  He skin was olive, her eyes dark.  She wore her hair in a fashionable
series of spikes, like a porcupine.  Dressed in the light green coveralls that
most traders sported, she seemed swamped by clothes.  her hand-touch was cool
and confident, and she kept the contact as she looked up at Alex Ryder, still
smiling disarmingly.  'So you're the man that Rafe has chosen.  Well Alex.  So
far it seems that star-riding with you is at least going to be quiet.  You do
...  er ...' she frowned.  'You do have a speech function?' She turned him
slightly and felt up his back for the switch.  'or are you one of the early
'semaphore and gormless grin' models?' 'Sorry,' Alex said.  'You took me by
suprise.' 'Oh God,' the woman said.  'Where's the off-switch?  I think I prefer
you silent...' 'Who are you?' Alex asked, irritated by her levity and keen to
find out why Rafe Zetter had summoned him here.  Where was the old man?  'Trader
Fields', she said, and touched the heel of her right hand to her left shoulder
by way of salute.  'My given name is Elyssia.  Elyssia Fields.' She smiled
again.  'My brood mother's little joke.  She discovered Greek mythology at age 9
when she was incubating her first cluster.' Brood mother?  Greek?  Incubating
clusters?  That meant that Elyssia Fields was from Teorge, the so-called
'clone-world'.  Alex struggled to remember what he'd been taught about Teorge
...  an inhabited world ...  settled by two colony ships that had proceeded to
clone a select few of the crew and colonists, killing the others.  For centuries
Teorge had been a world apart, cut off from the normal flow of trade and
commerce, and banned from sending representatives into space.  Elyssia Fields
was clearly a fugitive.  'I'm Alex Ryder,' Alex said.  'I know,' the woman said
back, breaking the gaze with which she'd been fixing him.  She patted the corpse
on the shoulder, and oddly affectionate gesture.  'This is - or rather was -
Space Trader Henry Bell.  We're going to purloin Mister Bell's coffin.  Of all
the people who are going to object, he's going to be the most objectionable.
This rust bucket is set up with holo-projections of our man here, warning of
dire consequences for invading his sanctity.  I've turned most of them off, but
I expect I've missed a few.' 'We're going to steal this ship?' Alex said
quietly, checking the flickering control display panel.  Witchlight fuel
registered enough for a 0.1 light-year jump, hardly sufficient to clear the
Tionisla system.  Elyssia stared at him, a half smile on her lips.  'We could
pass the time chatting if you prefer.  Plant some flowers, clean the tomb up a
little ...' 'I meant,' Alex said drily, 'How the hell are we going to get away
with it?  He found himself staring at the pert features of the humanoid female.
The shadow of gloom and grief that had haunted him for the last few hours seemed
to fade a little.  The girl interested him.  He added, 'And just why are you
helping me, anyway?  Where's Rafe?' With a quick laugh, Elyssia said, 'Funny
thing about Rafe.  Wherever you go in the galaxy, he's always there, a
shimmering white holoFac ...  but where he really is ...  that's something
you're about to find out.' She glanced up at Alex.  'Why am I helping you?  Who
says I am?  We'll be helping each other, in fact.  You have a father to avenge.
I have some things to avenge too.  Maybe I'll tell you about them one day.  But
without you I can't fly this ship.' Suprised, Alex said, 'Cobras were made to be
flown by a single pilot.' 'But I'm a single Teorgeon.  I'm not supposed to be
here.  I can fly this bucket with my eyes closed, but your face fits.  Listen,
Alex, this craft wouldn't survive the first attack by a pirate with a
peashooter, no matter how good we are behind the laser button.  We need shields,
missiles, defences and cargo space.  How d'you think we're going to get them?
They don't grow on silvery moons, you know.' 'Trade for them,' Alex said
gloomily, and the vista of his family's long life trading through the stars
swept before his eyes.  Elyssia was right.  He couldn't go hunting a Cobra
without the proper equipment, and it would take too long to sort out his
inheritance, bearing in mind the circumstances of his father's death.  He felt
utterly overwhelmed with frustration.  A part of him wanted to kill right now.
A part of him wanted to rip out onto the space-lanes, and hunt his father's
killer.  But the best part of him knew that would be a recipe for disaster, that
patience was called for, that a tactical appraisal of how he would set about the
hunt was essential ...  and that a protected ship was a barest necessity!  'I've
got a hundred credits in all the world,' Alex said, referring to the Galactic
Emergency Services loan that he had been given to get him home.  'It's a start,'
Elyssia said.  'It's a start in the trading business.  As Rafe would say, we'll
give this old lass an iron ass.' Her face darkened, though the flickering lights
from the console were bright in her eyes.  'Then we'll go to a place that I
suspect only Rafe Zetter knows, and we'll watch a lot of heartache burn up
courtesy of some fine shooting by the both of us.  We'll get the ship that put
an end to your father.  It's a ship that has a lot to answer for ...' But she
would say no more than that.

For anyone reckoning on beginning a space trading career from scratch the
hardest task is finding a ship.  Each planetary system has its floating junk
yards, its second-hand craft, its impounded vessels, eventually auctioned by the
police.  Most places advertise for co-pilots, to work without pay for four years
with the guarantee of a ship at the end of it - if they're still alive.  But
ships are expensive, even if they're from the scrap heap.  Alex was impressed
and startled by the audacity of the theft that was being proposed.  In response
to Rafe's plan, the fugitive, who had been hiding out in the dead craft for
nearly a year, had managed to accumulate the fuel, food and power to make a
brief hyperspace jump to the interstellar junk yard.  All that had been missing
was the right co-pilot, someone who could actually do the trading without
arousing suspicion.  They hauled the mummified body of Henry Bell to the small
tour-ship and set the craft adrift.  'Whatever happens now,' Elyssia said as
they took positions at the bridge consoles, 'You're going to get an 'offender'
status tag.  But Rafe thinks if you respect the body they'll just post it at
Tionisla itself.  Destroy the body and they'll probably notify most worlds in
the vicinity, and we can't afford that.  Here goes ...' On the screen the small
tour-ship drifted away, and the crowded monuments of the cemetery swung past in
a dizzying array of bright and shadowy surfaces.  Alex studied the scanners and
monitors carefully.  The only had a tiny energy supply to fore and aft screens.
A blast or two of laser power.  No missiles of course.  The craft was still
locked on to the Dodo space station, whose position was shown by the darting
bright point in the tri-axial grid map.  Slowly the Cobra turned, and began to
move gently, silently towards the edge of the spiral grave-field.  The scanner
scanned, and Alex watched it hard, alert and apprehensive for the tell-tale wink
of its moving green light.  The duller-colours of the tombs and stationary craft
crowded the scanning screen, moving slowly past.  'There's something I ought to
tell you about uncontrolled Witch-Space jumps ...' Elyssia said, and Alex felt a
moment's irritation.  'I already know.  Thanks.  besides, wherever we're going
we're only going a tenth of a LY.  And that's reasonably safe.' Elyssia
sniggered.  'What god or goddess do you believe in?' 'Randomius Factoria ...'
Alex muttered.  'Me too ...' They looked at each other.  Alex laughed and said,
'repeat after me:  Lady of Fate, we adore you ...'Get us to Rafe's, we implore
you ...' The monuments and monoliths drifted by.  The star field widened ahead
of them.  'Nearly there,' Elyssia breathed.  'Get ready for the jump ...' Alex
watched the scanner.  And two bright points of light appeared, moving rapidly
towards them.  'Company!' he said, and Elyssia swore loudly.  'Use our laser,
and any chance of trading goes.  Those are police.  They may not be Vipers, but
they're police nevertheless.  Damn!' Ahead of the the starfield was almost
clear.  the two security craft veered apart, to close in from the sides.
Elyssia began to count down, finger resting on the simple trigger that would
despatch them faraway.  'Ten seconds...' The Cobra vibrated and whined, unused
to activity after many years in stasis.  'They're closing - fire coming in!'
'Five seconds.' The Cobra screeched as a laser shot glanced off its hull.  The
shield energy, low as it was, vanished!  The attacking craft overshot.  It's
colleague fired and missed, manoeuvring with difficulty around a large, henge
monument that slowly revolved at the edge of the cemetery.  'Three ...' 'Lining
up ...  fire coming in!' The two craft were together again.  Their laser fire
played in the void around the Cobra.  'Two ...' There was a strike, a scream of
pain, the vessel almost rocked out of control.  And then - Star tunnel!  Elyssia
flopped back in her chair.  Alex cheered.  When he looked at the woman he saw
that she was drenched with sweat.  When he reached a hand towards her, his
fingers were shaking uncontrollably.
	
                        CHAPTER FOUR 
 
'You've got a ship,' said Rafe, 'You've got money.  You've got a co-pilot who's
a better shot than you, but not for long I hope.  Now it's up to you, young
Alex.  And one thing more.  If Jason were here he'd have this to say.  In time
of trouble, forget common sense, forget the force.  Do what you goddam feel
like.  If it don't work, one thing's for sure.  You ain't going to be around to
regret it.' Seated at the astrogation console of the Cobra, Alex watched Rafe's
home on the forward screen.  It was a much modified, and quite bizarre looking,
Anaconda cruiser, its cargo bay dented, its fuel-scoop ripped open, its hull
lights blinking not so much with meaning as with disrepair.  rafe had not
invited him aboard.  At 0.1 light years from Tionisla he was safe from
detection, and here he stayed in the cold and silence of interstellar space,
collecting ships, fuel, food and weapons.  Three Mambas - small fighters - were
tethered to the service bay on the Anaconda's hull, robots crawling all over
them as they patched-up the shot up vessels.  Unlike humans, robots could work
without arc-lights.  When the graveyard ship had arrived at Rafe Zetter's
private system, Rafe's holoFac had appeared in the cabin.  'It takes a lot of
effort and a lot of wile to get supplies for the sort of mission you're about to
go on.  I'll fuel your ship enough to get you to Isinor.  But from then on
you're on your own.  You're going to need missiles, operational lasers, an
energy bomb, a fuel-scoop ...  a whole bunch of other things.' 'An iron ass,'
Alex muttered with a smile.  'That's right.  And I don't want to hear from you
again until you've scalped that Cobra that killed Jason.' 'Why are you doing
this for me?' 'I'm doing it for Jason,' Rafe said.  'And for others besides.
And listen Alex.  Don't you go worrying about Raxxla.  Not yet.  That comes in
time ...' 'But why did he say it?' 'To let me know he trusted you.  You father
reckoned you have it in you to become one of the Elite.  That's good enough for
me.' Alex's head span.  What was the old man saying now?  Not just that Jason
Ryder had been an elite combateer, but that he'd seen the same potential in his
son?  in Simcombat Alex had often built up a success and survival score that had
awarded him the simulator's highest accolade:  a victory roll over the mock-up
of the old earth city of London.  But he had never thought that in real life he
would ever achieve a combat status higher than 'dangerous'.  To be elite...  A
dizzying prospect.  And a nerve-racking one, with all that it implied of not
just fighting off free-booters, but of spending time as a bounty hunter,
deliberately hyperspacing into dangerous planetary systems and waiting for
pirates to come to you; looking for trouble, in other words, boosting your
combat status to the maximum by advertising yourself to killers, and outgunning
them.  'One thing's for sure,' Rafe went on drily.  'Unless you get there,
unless you become elite, you'll never get to Raxxla.  And you'll never know
exactly what your father was searching for.' 'I don't understand.' Were you
aware of his involvement in the Dark Wheel?' Shock after shock!  The Dark Wheel
was a semi-legendary space unit, star-riders who made it their business to seek
the truth behind the plethora of myths and romantic stories that filtered back
from all corners of the Universe:  fabulous cities, parallel worlds, time
travellers, even planets that appeared to be the old 'heaven' of Earth legend.
The Dark Wheel was as mysterious and as mythical to the traders of the Galaxy as
King Arthur might have been to the first spacemen.  'It's not possible,' Alex
breathed.  'He would have told us ...' 'The hell he would,' Rafe said, staring
at the younger man from the shimmering holoFac on the bridge.  'The ship that
killed Jason was no pirate.  He was killed because he'd found something.
Something that certain parties were deeply unhappy that he'd found.' 'What
exactly?' Rafe laughed.  'Listen to the boy!  Look at me, Alex.  Do I look
whole?  I do?  Well I ain't.  One leg, some of my liver, a few brain cells - all
that's left of the real me.  The rest is just bionic.  Trying to do what your
father did, I got shot to hell 'n' back.  I was elite once.  Now it takes me ten
seconds to decide to spit.  He didn't tell me because I'm not part of it
anymore.  Not to that degree.  But I watch and I listen, and I do what I'm told.
And as sure as there's gold-flake on the skin of a Geretean, Jason Ryder told me
to get you ready to follow in his footsteps.' Coming so soon after his father's
death, with the memory of Jason's murder so vivid in his mind, it was almost too
much for Alex.  He didn't know whether to glow with pride, or shake with
apprehension.  he slowly sat down at the astrogation console and played his
fingers over the controls of the Cobra.  After a while he smiled, and shrugged
away the confusions and the sadness he was feeling.  'Right.  If it's what my
father wanted, then I shan't disappoint him ...'
 
                        ------------ 
 
                        CHAPTER FIVE 
 
Out of Witch-Space:  the dizziness, the slight shudder, the brief
disorientation.  Ahead of them, the distant, red-blue disc of the planet Xezaor
was only slightly brighter than the gleaming field of stars around.  The
planet's sun was dim and very close by.  It glowed red.  A dying star, as the
world ahead of them was a dying world, a cooling world, a world whose wealth and
industrial development could not hold back the process of Galactic ageing.
Xezaor was a world where luxuries and warmth meant everything, now, and
Shanaskilk fur, with the multiple heads still intact, would fetch a high price.
Routine.  A routine trade run.  Elyssia dozed, Alex punched co-ordinates into
the auto-pilot and prepared to pass the time of the long run-in to the world.
Routine, a routine which Alex was by now well used to.  Out of Witch-Space and
then the slow approach until the Coriolis station came on target- Nothing to do
...  Nothing to see ...  The Cobra rocked and a sound like the screech of metal
being bent apart echoed through the bridge!  'Company!' Alex said loudly, and
Elyssia blinked awake.  She must have assessed the situation in an instant.  She
remained where she was.  Alex was at the console and there were only seconds
available for thought.  Alex had been taken by suprise, not because he hadn't
been paying attention, but because the attack ships had been so close to the
egress point from hyperspace.  With their tiny hulls between him and the glowing
sun, they had not been visible for an instant, and they had been performing a
'tumbling' routine, mimicking, slow-moving asteroids.  Alex had half noticed
them and half ignored them.  They had got the first shot in, then overflown the
Cobra.  Now, they grouped behind as Alex punched up maximum speed, and scanned
space for them.  'here they come ...' The shields screamed as laser fire played
off them.  Beam lasers?  Those ships were well equipped.  But then, so now was
the Nemesis, the dramatic name that he and Elyssia had given to their ship.
Alex checked the rear monitor and lined up the firing window.  He stabbed out
two bursts of fire from the newly installed aft-laser.  The pirate ships veered
apart, one of them struck.  As he had them on the screen, he targeted a missile.
A missile from one of the attacking craft began to weave towards them, and his
screen flashed with warning.  Alex operated the Nemesis's ECM, and after an
agonisingly long few seconds the incoming missile vanished in a burst of heat
and light.  The hull screeched and Alex dived.  He noticed that the shields had
begun to put a drain on the first energy unit.  Elyssia sat calm and quiet while
Alex handled the situation.  Ahead of them, the planet edged closer, rising and
falling and spinning in a dizzying way as Alex fought for a better combat
position.  Then instinct took over.  He looped the Cobra a full 180 degrees and
raced head-on at the pirate vessel that had been behind him.  Now he could see
that it was a Fer-de-lance, a sleek, fast ship that was probably loaded down
with sophisticated navigational and defence equipment that had been installed by
the original owner.  Or maybe not ...  such equipment took cash to maintain, and
this ship had seen battle service aplenty.  As pirate and Alex closed, Alex took
a chance.  they had only four missiles and one was targeted.  He punched for
fire and the Cobra jolted as the deadly sting shot across space.  It reached its
target and the Fer-de-lance literally disappeared.  Had it hyperspaced?  No.
When Alex activated the rear screen, he saw the spreading ash cloud, a Silvery
glimmer against the stars ...  'Good shooting!' Elyssia said enthusiastically.
Through the cloud of metal and ash came the other ship.  Alex looped again.  A
laser strike depleted the aft shield even more.  But now that the enemy knew
that its prey had an anti-missile system, it was going to try and dogfight Alex
to destruction.  This ship was a Cobra too.  It's fuel-scoop gaped, ready to
suck up the canisters of precious Shanaskilk fur from the wreckage of the
shattered trader.  Alex had other ideas.  Again, Xezaor was ahead of them.
rear-shooting, Alex ducked and darted towards safety, and the pirate weaved a
snaking pattern against the star- field behind.  Alex targeted a missile - 'Save
it if you can ...' Elyssia breathed.  'I know,' said Alex.  'But at least we can
afford a replacement ...' We won't afford the fuel scoop then,' Elyssia reminded
him, and they both laughed.  At a time like this, worried about their shopping
list!  The space station, and the safety it afforded with its own fighter
defences, was too far away.  Alex veered sharply sunwards, and dropped his
forward velocity dramatically.  the pursuing ship copied the first movement
precisely, but took a few seconds to orientate to the second.  It overshot.
Before it knew what was happening it was no longer the hunter but the hunted.
'Go, Alex, go!' Elyssia shouted, as Alex shot off pulse after pulse of laser
fire.  the Cobra on the screen ducked and weaved, but Alex was equal to it,
hardly thinking, just reacting.  the temperature of his forward laser began to
rise dangerously.  The Cobra ahead of them launched a missile at them, and Alex
shot it, not even bothering to program the ECM.  Elyssia gasped at the cheek of
that, and glanced at the young man in whose hands her life was being so capably
held.  A moment later it was all over.  The pirate exploded, his screen energy
finally exhausted.  Alex saw the wink and flash of a jetissoned escape pod and
for a second - Remembering the beam of fire that had destroyed his own escape
craft, remembering the savage destruction of the Avalonia ...  - he was tempted
to go in pursuit.  His better judgement prevailed.  Around them, cargo
cannisters tumbled like sycamore seeds.  'And us with no scoop to pick them up!'
Elyssia muttered.  Alex grinned.  'We claim two.  that's quite a bounty.'
Elyssia looked down at him as he sat and guided the ship towards Xezaor.  'Alex,
you're a natural.  It's an honour to ride the stars with you.' No-one had said a
word, neither of them commented on it:  the fact that this had been Alex's first
solo combat!

                        -----------
 
                        CHAPTER SIX 
 
           
They had been trading now for three standard months, and their Cobra craft, the
Nemesis, was was scarcely recognisable as the tomb-place of Trader Henry Bell.
With new insignia, new welding, new colour and the pods and swellings of the
armaments housings, it began to look like a fighter.  Three months a trader.
And not for one hour of one day of those months had Alex forgotten the reason
behind this way of life.  Something - someone - disguised as a trader had killed
his father, and done it's best to kill him.  His father had led a double life,
and according to the oldest relic in the Galaxy, had deputised his son to follow
in his star path.  Alex Ryder was not about to fail his father in that wish.
There were so many questions, so much grief, so much anger.  And for Elyssia
too, although the Teorgeon woman rarely showed the emotion that Alex sensed was
bubbling just below the surface of her cool, wise-cracking exterior.  They were
facing a task together, a task of growing, of becoming strong.  There would have
to be a time of waiting, and both were accepting that time with as much silent
patience as they could muster.  But it was not easy, not easy for wither of
them.  And for Alex, with blood on his hands at last ...  not easy at all ...
The skirmish with the two pirate ships had scraped the paint a little, and
loosened several hull plates, necessitating a trip to a service station where,
because of their bounty hunting, the work would almost certainly be performed
free of charge.  Though this had been Alex's first solo combat, it had not been
their first battle.  Elyssia would have qualified for 'dangerous' status had she
been eligible for a rating.  As it was, her rating - on the evidence of the
Nemesis's skirmishing - had been assigned to Alex.  Now, for the first time,
Alex felt he had taken a substantial step towards proving that he genuinely
deserved that particular classification.  Still at the astrogation console, he
guided the ship to within a thousand kilometres of the surface of the dying
world, so close that the planet filled everything in the forward vision screen.
At dead slow approach speed he finally looped around and there, slowly spinning
before them - a glittering metal cube - was the space station, its access bay, a
wide rotating mouth.  'Oh for a docking computer ...' Alex murmured as he began
to match rotation and slowly approached.  'Waste of money ...' Elyssia chided.
'If you can't dock without losing your paintwork, you shouldn't be in space.'
Alex was a great flier.  but snaking neatly into the reception bay of a Coriolis
station was his greatest weakness.  He made it, though, and once inside the vast
hanger space, magnetic traction drew the Nemesis slowly to a vacant berth.
AutoCom links snaked out and clamped to its hull.  Alex watched the bustle in
this great, brightly-lit void, the customs ships, the police Vipers, the
advertising modules, the repair modules, all moving slowly in the cube-space,
touting for business.  Elyssia hid in the escape pod as usual.  Alex declared
his cargo, and received confirmation of his bounty killings, and notification of
his bonus:  thirty credits!  That exactly covered the cost of a new missile.
When all the check-ins, log-ins and identity verifications had been run, Elyssia
emerged from hiding.  The escape capsule had been their first priority, and they
had bought one second hand for four-hundred credits.  They didn't intend to use
it anyway, except to screen off Elyssia's unfortunate and unwelcome origins.
Now began the routine of business.  Selling, then deciding where to trade next,
and what to buy to take with them.  Trading is very much a hit and miss
profession.  With certain high demand, high turnover products, a small profit
can usually be guaranteed - foodstuffs, textiles, simple machinery, simple
luxuries.  but the ship's running costs, and an occasional space skirmish, can
soon eat up such profits, making the whole exercise essentially worthless.
There is no way of knowing trade prices at other systems.Each planetary state
jealously guards its stock-market information, and there are heavy penalties for
faxing the market prices of any item beyond orbit-space.  Prices change, too.
Speculators lurk in every system, no matter how poor.  that tonne of frozen
bladderlash that would have fetched eight credits a month ago on Ceinzala,
against a buying prices of three from its homeworld Reorte, will suddenly be
worth only two.  The demand for bladderlash had not lessened.  The speculators
have made a secret killing, and fixed up the market.  Hit and miss.  Alex and
Elyssia had been lucky so far.  they had carried Vargorn mind- silk between
Rexebe and Inera and doubled their initial hundred credits.  They had ferried
gold-flakes of Geretean reptiles and only just covered their costs.  They had
supplied twenty tonnes of sunflower seeds to the grotesque amphibioid
inhabitants of Bierle, to who sunflower seeds were a particular delicacy, only
to find that a mass, mind-induced mutation had occured throughout the entire
planetary population, changing their taste buds ...  The search was now on for
the new delicacy to delight the palates of the Bierleans.  Lubrication oil had
come close, and lavender scented tissue paper.  But somewhere there was a real
profit to be made.  One day.  One year.  Moving machinery from high-tech worlds
to middle-tech worlds was also unexpectedly profitable, and demand for luxuries
was always high on evolving industrial worlds.  But on Xezaor the Shanaskilk
furs (bought at thirty galactic credits the tonne) were likely to be at their
best bet yet.  Alex nervously called up the buying price at Xezaor.  He whooped
with triumph as he saw that he and Elyssia had tripled their money.  This time,
in the hit and miss game, they had hit lucky.  They sold the furs without
trouble.  Then Alex called up the price list at Xezaor of ship and armaments
equipment.  The new missile was the standard thirty credits.  He ordered one and
a small robot scuttled off to fetch the permitted weaponry.  Beam lasers were
one thousand credits, and the temptation to invest in one was strong.  The price
of the fuel and cargo scoop which the Nemesis so badly needed was extortionately
high, at five hundred and twenty-five credits.  But an energy bomb cost nearly
twice as much!  Of course a fuel scoop could be used for salvage, as well as
topping up their fuel banks by sun-skimming.  so it was a good investment, even
at one hundred credits over the odds.  Alex ordered one.  Delivery and fitting
would take twenty hours, a standard day.  Alex fuelled the ship, next, and
stocked up with Xezaorian delicacies.  They had three hundred and twenty
galactic credits left with which to buy trade stock, an uncomfortably low sum.
On the other hand, their ship now had extra defensive shields, four-directional
targetting of lasers and missiles, an anti-missile system and a fuel scoop.
They were more than half way to becoming a battle cruiser.  Elyssia scanned the
planet's market list with Alex.  For all that Xezaorians liked exotic things,
they had precious little to offer.  Two narcotics were available - arcturan
burstweed and, strangely, tobacco - and Alex thought hard about them.  'Surely
we could get away with tobacco ...' 'Uh-huh.' Elyssia murmured.  'No way.
Nicotine is deadly, even in low doses, to many races.' 'If we carried it to a
human world?' 'Still too risky.' Minerals were on offer, but were pricy.
Durassion - one of the ores that could be refined and 'time-stressed' to give
duralium for ship's hulls - was available at eight credits the tonne, and that
would sell exceptionally well at Lave ...  but Lave was many light years away,
now, and any dura-ore could bottom-out on a standard day when a new richer ore
was found.  Too risky.  Gemstones?  there were maroon and silver spectonals for
sale, and red- green emeronds.  A pirate convoy would smell such booty from two
light years away.  As for the curiousity market there were two hundred
fossilised Dironothaxaurian life-bones on offer, at forty credits each.  'Ever
heard of them?' Elyssia asked.  Alex said, 'I've seen one.  And heard one.  In a
museum on my homeworld.  they sing.  They're over forty million years old, and
still they sing; waiting for something, a hatching, or a change of climate.
They're bones from the pelvic region, so they could be incubation pods.  Nobody
knows ...' 'Are they valuable?' 'Very.  Exactly by how much I don't know.'
'Check it for restrictions ...' Alex did so.  There were no known import
restrictions, or potential legal violations involved in trading in these
fossilised animal bones.  'Better than food - ' Alex said.  'Any day,' Elyssia
agreed.  'So we go for it ...' 'I suppose so.' But as Alex began to key into the
trade-centre to purchase the goods, the console flashed the words, 'Incoming
message ...' 'Rafe!' Alex said.  And Elyssia too seemed excited at the prospect
of seeing and talking with Rafe Zetter again.  But it was not the wizened,
crusty old space trader who appeared on the screen as Alex accepted the call.
Nothing like.  It was a human being, and not a humanoid alien that faced them.
But what had happened to its face was beyond description.  there were many ways
to change ordinary human looks to nightmarish caricatures of the same:  flying
too close to certain stars, being exposed to the interstellar vacuum too often,
working in certain ore and mineral mines ...  But Alex, as he stared at the
lumpy, grey swellings that swathed this person's flesh, could not imagine what
grotesque disaster had befallen the caller.  Lips like quivering gossamer wings
trembled in the grey flesh.  A hand, skeletal and crippled, shot through with
bright red blood vessels, touched the wispy ginger hair that grew in a bizarre
floral circle around the deformed head.  'Are you Ryder?' The voice, at least,
was normal.  And male.  'Identify yourself, caller.' Ignoring the question the
other man went on, 'What're you trading in this time?  Minerals?  Specialities?'
'What's it to you?' 'Whatever it is you're thinking of buying, I can do you a
better deal.' 'I wouldn't trade with you if I was running hot from a supernova.'
The human grinned 9or so it seemed).  'Rafe Zetter would.  How come you're so
fussy?' 'You know Rafe?' Alex asked, perturbed and puzzled by the grotesque
man's invocation of the friendly name.  'Me and half the Universe.' The deformed
man leaned closer to the monitor.  his features filled the screen totally.
'Parasites.' 'I'm sorry?' 'These things.  This ...' tapping his face.
'Parasites.  Spider worms.  I did a stint in the pen.  on Dykstra's world, and
the little buggers took a liking to me.  These are the larvae, about two million
of them.  They'll hatch out in about ten years, and that'll be the end of me.  I
sort of hope I'm at a dinner party with someone I don't like, at the time, but
you can't plan for these things.  I don't blame you for not trusting me ...'
Pale eyes glittered from beneath the heavy, pulsating folds of grey flesh.  'But
don't judge by appearances.  Alex - it is Alex, isn't it?  I mean, for hell's
sake tell me if I've got the wrong number ...' 'I'm Alex Ryder.' 'And I'm
Patrick McGreavy.  I'll say just two things to you.  the first is this:  when
you kill the snake, you'll lay a ghost that's haunted me for more than five
years.  I'm not a flier.  What I am doesn't matter.  There are more people like
me than all the sunflower seeds you've traded in your life.  People who need
vengeance.  People who can't do it for themselves.  Kill the snake and you'll do
a service to us all.' Alex couldn't help the wry smile that touched his lips,
even though he had rarely felt less like smiling.  He felt as if he were being
manoeuvred, manipulated, like a robot ship, an autoremote, programmed to fly in
endless, mindless circles.  What the hell was going on?  He was jason ryder's
son, and until three months ago his best combat experience had been in a
SimCombat trainer.  His pilot's license had hardly dried.  And somehow, despite
all of this, he had been chosen as nemesis to exact a savage vengeance from a
ship that was certainly far more than a simple - and simply deadly - pirate.
There were people watching him, and waiting on him, their fingers crossed, their
breath held.  Why him?  Why him?  (and Elyssia ...) 'Okay,' he said quietly.  'I
get the message.  You said "two things".' 'Right.  Rafe told you to trade in
Shanaskilk fur, as soon as you could afford it.  Am I right?' He was right.  It
was one of Rafe's last pieces of advice to Alex, and Alex had not forgotten it.
McGreavy went on, 'When Rafe told you to do that he was sending you to me.
You've got to get an iron ass.  You've got to trade in something really
worthwhile.  unship and fly across to South City, to the private traders' centre
in the Magellan Building.' 'I've already got an "iron ass",' Alex said.  'You
think so, do you?  Do it anyway.  Take a chance.  Make your way to the Magellan
Building, South City ...' After a moment's hesitation, and with a glance at
Elyssia, who just shrugged and nodded, Alex agreed.
 
A Coriolis station is nothing less than a vast city built on six planes and
spread, around the wide empty sky of its interior, facing inwards.  From South
City, the roof of the world is North City.  At night, the lights that glow above
your head are the lights of streets and buildings.  Alex checked out of the
ship's berth and took a sky taxi across the void.  the tint automatic ship slid
delicately and smoothly between the incoming and outgoing ships.  Alex watched
in fascination as the towering buildings of South city dropped away below and
the grey sky edged closer.  To his left, he could see the pattern of streets and
parklands on the inhabited plane known as Commander City.  facing the entrance
to the station, on that particular level lived the high ranking officials and
various planetary envoys and ambassadors.  They enjoyed a landscape which
included lakes, rivers and ski-slopes with real snow.  Below him, the Nemesis
became a tiny dart-shape on the broad landing pad.  Above him, the towering
offices and living blocks reached down towards him like geometrical stalactites.
There was an abrupt moment's disorientation and suddenly the roof was the ground
and now the Nemesis was a single, winking light in the heavens.  The taxi
dropped swiftly to street level, between the grey and black monolithic
structures.  lights of different colours blinked and shone, and when the
atmosphere began, a strange dusty shimmer seemed to envelop the city.  The
streets were crowded here and it took Alex only moments to realise that the
South City of this particular Coriolis station was the 'down town' area.
Illegal trade abounded, in narcotics, robots, slaves, sensuastims, prostitution
and frozen organs.  Spacers, walked slowly, cautiously, most of them still
wearing near-full suit, a certain sign that this was the rough quarter.
Hookers, of all sexes (the Galaxy counted seventeen at this time) and races, but
mostly humanoid, solicited from hovering platforms, ready to escape fast from
any over-welcoming, unwelcome client.  Advertising hoardings here were almost
completely devoted to proclaiming the illicit pleasures which were available in
South City.  police cars and remotes roared overhead, as did med-ships.  The
streets were alive with noise and bustle and filth.  The Magellan Building, a
dark, squat cube, sat amongst this confusion like a great, brooding monster.  It
had no visible windows.  Lifts rose and fell on its outer walls, slow-moving
green lights that gave it an uncanny sense of being alive.  Alex had come
without a hand weapon, and now began to regret it.  Practically everyone - and
everything - he saw carried a gun, in contradiction of orbit-space law.  He
walked cautiously through the crowds of reptiloids, cloaked amphibioids,
armoured insectoids, squat, bristling felines, and the grotesque robo-tanks in
which things that looked like giant molluscs, or worms, or branches of heather,
moved within the safety of their own environment.  He entered the Magellan
building and noticed the stench for the first time, the combined body odours of
a thousand alien life-forms; suprisingly some - those who drank raw methane gas
- managed to excrete sweat that smelled as sweet as apple blossom.  But most did
not.  The private trading centre was a vast hall, surrounded by the entrances to
offices and warehouses.  What was sold in this crowded, noisy place, was
anything that was considered too risky, or bizarre, or commonplace to sell on
the open market.  The trader who loaded up his cargo bay from a private purchase
had better check with the planet's export monitoring system before leaving, or
his reception, at the other end, might be a little more violent than he'd
expected.  Alex scanned the high walls for a hint of McGreavy's warehouse.  As
he did so, he found himself standing behind two tall, violent-looking insect-
forms, their bodies armoured in light grey, their facetted eyes swivelling to
stare at him as they talked together, chelicerae clashing and clacking in the
peculiar mode of communication.  Alex stepped away, heart beating, blood rushing
to his head.  Compound eyes, jointed limbs, head antennae, double cutting jaws
...  Thargoids!  Here, on a space station!  Thargoids were deadly.  Thargoid
spacers had their fear-glands removed, and were considered to be the most
effective and potent of mankind's enemies.  The bounty for killing a Thargoid
was huge, and for capturing, and delivering the juvenile form, the Tharglet, to
any Space Navy research centre, even greater.  What were they doing here?  The
Thargoids chatted together and watched Alex coldly.  Alex noticed that each had
an appendage resting on its thoracic plate, where they holstered their
hand-lasers.  'Back off,' a voice whispered, and Alex turned.  McGreavy stood
there blinking through his deformities.  Alex had not grasped how short the man
was; he only came up as far as Alex's chest.  'Thargoids ...' he whispered.
'Bullshit,' McGreavy said, and dragged Alex away.  'They're Oresrians, and the
one thing that can make an Oresrian deadly is being confused the way you've just
confused them, with their deadly enemies the Thargoids.  Check the thorax
markings and the shape of the fourth joint on each hind leg before you jump to
conclusions again ...' Alex followed McGreavy gratefully, away from the
whispering insects.  McGreavy's warehouse was small, cramped and smelly.  Alex
followed him through into the dimly lit interior, and felt a pang of discomfort
as the grotesque little man closed the doors behind them.  In several large,
transparent crates, peculiar creatures shuffled and murmured, excited at the
sudden disturbance.  'Are these what you have to offer?' Alex asked in a low
voice.  McGreavy chuckled.  he walked over to the nearest crate and brought up
the light, to illuminate more clearly the odd creature within.  Alex stared.
The creature was vaguely familiar, but the memory refused to come.  It had a
thick shell, patterned neatly, and limb holes at regular intervals around this
bony house.  For the moment the beast was securely hidden within its protective
environment.  'What are they?' 'Mymurths,' McGreavy said.  'If they seem
familiar its because they're astonishingly like an animal of Old Earth:  the
tortus, as I believe it was called.  These things have two heads, four legs, and
two anterior organelles that seem to serve no purpose.  They're named for the
planet of their origin.  Mymurth.  But you'll be shipping them to Cirag.  The
Ciragians have a special relationship with the Mymurth.' 'They eat them?' Alex
guessed.  'They worship them,' McGreavy corrected with a twitch of his flimsy
lips.  'Worship?' McGreavy nodded.  'To the Cirag race, the Mymurth are the
reincarnations of gods.  A particular sort of god, called an 'avatar'.  The
animal form of a god.  The Mymurth look very like the legendary avatars of
Ciragian religion and mythology.  They're from another world, of course, and
have no connection with Cirag at all.  But any Ciragian family will give a small
fortune to have a living Mymurth in its temple.' Alex was fascinated and
intrigued.  The bulky creatures moved sluggishly about, their fleshy pink limbs
emerging from the shells to propel them through the slush that filled their
cages.  'How much is a small fortune?' 'Each of these will fetch a hundred
credits.  Maybe more.  And i have twenty-eight.  twenty-eight hundred credits.
that'll but you all the shields and weaponry you need ...' 'Why not trade them
yourself?' McGreavy laughed sourly.  'With my record?  You must be joking.  No
thanks.  It takes me half a standard year to get a pen full of these things, and
Rafe Zetter usually has a customer for me, someone like yourself who needs
credit fast, to perform a certain act ...  of violence ...' Alex found himself
staring at the bright eyes of the hideous face before him.  He was no longer
overly concious of the deformities, or of the pulsating life that existed just
below the man's skin.  He was aware only of the fact that he wanted - needed -
to trust this aquaintance of Rafe's, and yet didn't.  'Make me an offer I can't
refuse,' McGreavy said, and hard reality hit Alex again.  He said, 'Three
hundred.' McGreavy chuckled and shook his head.  'The idea is that you make the
profit.  You won't do that offering me three times what you're likely to make
for a Mymurth.' 'I meant ...  three hundred for the lot.' For a second McGreavy
stood in silence, staring at the younger man.  'Is this a joke?' 'No joke.  I
have three hundred credits in the world.  You've got the wrong boy, McGreavy.'
'You just sold a cargo load of Shanaskilk fur!' 'And bought weapons and a fuel
scoop.  I bought the furs at a loss to begin with.  I'm no trader McGreavy.  I'm
a combateer.  I did tell you.' Alex looked down at the Mymurth.  'I'll buy eight
off you.  How's that?' 'I sell the lot, or not at all.  I want fifteen hundred
credits for them.  Rafe said you'd come through ...' 'Rafe was wrong.  Shift
them through some other sucker ...' Alex turned to go.  McGreavy's whimper of
panic was almost funny to hear.  'I save these things up for Rafe.  Who else is
going to trade in Mymurth?' 'I'll take ten off your hands, for three hundred
credits.  The more you stall, the less I'll offer.' Alex was enjoying this.  'I
need to shift the lot.  To Cirag.' Where was Cirag, Alex wondered.  It was not a
name that rang any bells.  'Then you'll have to trust me,' he said.  'Like you
trust Rafe.  I'll give you a down payment of three hundred against one third of
what I get at Cirag.  I'll come back and pay you off.' McGreavy stared at him in
silence; the man's breathing was laboured.  'One third will hardly cover my
outlay.  Fifty percent.' 'Forty percent,' Alex said.  'And no further
bargaining.' The Mymurth shuffled anxiously.  McGreavy shrugged with defeat.  He
summoned the vid-witness, and the two men signed the agreement.  Twenty- eight
Mymurth for sale to Cirag, forty percent of the proceeds to be returned to Pat
McGreavy at South City, Coriolis 7, Xezaor.  If McGreavy was right, and the
money was forthcoming from the religious nutcases on Cirag ...  Where was Cirag?
...  The Nemesis could be equipped with beam lasers, extra missiles, extra
shield energy units, and an energy bomb, and the hunt could begin in earnest.
Alex returned to his ship to report the day's trading.

                        ------------- 
 
                        CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
They had been set up, of course.  And in a way, they went into the set-up
gamely.  Alex checked up on the planet Cirag and discovered that it was not
listed with the Official Planetary Register.  That was the reason for its
unfamiliar name.  Not to be registered was not in itself unusual.  Only
inhabited worlds were listed.  There were millions of uninhabited star systems
of use to miners, traders and explorers, which could only be located by
reference to the Galactic Gazatteer of Worlds.  But Cirag was inhabited by
intelligent beings.  That meant just one thing:  Cirag was an independant world,
had refused Federation Status, was dangerous, probably deadly, most likely the
haven for freebooters and criminals, and almost certainly a system in which the
general principle of 'laser first, talk second' was applied.  'We've got to be
crazy ...' Elyssia said.  Alex agree, 'Could Cirag be Raxxla?  Could it be the
world my father mentioned before he died?' 'No way.  Cirag is Cirag, and Raxxla
- if it exists - is in another Galaxy; you know the legends.  Cirag is just a
hell-hole of a world, by the sounds of it.  Give the guy his turtles back.
Let's trade life-bones.' But Alex said no.  Something about the whole deal,
about the way he felt manipulated, guided, had whet his appetite for this
venture.  There was good money to be made, and the Nemesis could finally equip
itself to perfection.  And the hunt could begin.  Vengeance could begin.  'It's
hit or miss, right?  And in Rafe's eloquent language, we'll not know a goddam
about any failure.' 'We've got to be crazy ...' Elyssia repeated.  'Let's not
talk to any strangers, at least ...'
 
Out of Witch-Space.  The planet Cirag floated before them, a pastel yellow
world, the dark markings upon its surface - mountains, probably, or deserts -
forming a pattern that reminded Alex of bones.  At nineteen light years from
Xezaor, the Nemesis had made two refuelling stops, and as they came into System
Space they had energy enough for a two-light-year jump only.  The nearest world,
Alex knew, was more than twice that distance away No matter.  With their new
fuel scoop they would simply transit the sun's corona, and recharge the fuel
cells.  Cirag's sun was a large, yellow star, old, but with much life left in it
yet.  It was active, too.  As Elyssia - at the astrogation console - turned
towards it, so two immense streamers of fire were erupting from its surface,
whirlpools of plasma that were spectacular when seen through the Nemesis'
polarising filters.  'Let's catch some of that heat,' Elyssia said, and punched
for top speed.  The Nemesis surged forward.  But they flew for no more than a
minute.  'Holy Mother of the Stars!' Alex stared at the scanner screens and felt
his stomach turn over.  The bright marks there were so large that they could
only be Boa or Anaconda class cruisers.  They had formed an attack pattern, four
large ships, surrounded by the darting points of light that was its fighter
escort.  On the viewscreen, against the glowing sun, the assault group were dark
smears, rapidly closing.  'Boas,' Elyssia said.  'They're set up as fighter
cruisers, by the look of it.  At least they're slow.  Hang on ...' Alex gripped
his seat, then grimaced as he fell for the same trap that his father had always
set for him.  But this time it was as well that he secured himself.  The
universe shifted; his body organs did somersaults.  Elyssia feigned an escape
loop, and the fighters - Mambas by the looks of them - broke formation and went
into the scatter mode that meant pursuit.  But Elyssia completed the loop to
come full back against the looming pirate craft.  She sailed under the belly of
the leader with as much calm and cheek as you please.  It belly-shot at them,
and she rolled the Cobra so that she could side-strafe back.  All along the
Boa's under-belly, shards and sparks flew brightly where the shields were
lowered around the laser housings.  'Markings are unfamiliar ...' Alex said.
There had been black and green flags with bright sunbursts on them, and
non-terrestrial ideographs on the sides.  'Intentions very familiar ...' Elyssia
breathed.  Behind them, two of the Mambas were closing fast.  Pulses of laser
fire made eerie streaks in the dark circle of space around the glowing sun ahead
of them.  The huge ships had turned too, and were accelerating towards them.
Elyssia made it clear, without speaking, that they'd never reach the star and
have time to refuel.  Alex, never taking his eyes from the scanners, knew as
much.  Elyssia rolled the Cobra and turned to fight.  She targeted a missile and
dispatched it on the turn, and the nearest fighter became a glittering dust
cloud.  The other streaked fire across the forward shields, and the Nemesis
shuddered and whined.  Two stabs of her finger on the side-fire button, and the
second mamba tumbled, its shield still up, its pilot disorientated by the
unexpected hit.  Elyssia closed in for the kill.  Killed.  On of the Boas loomed
large from the darkness.  It was rolling slowly, and beams of light played from
its spike nose.  Elyssia targeted a missile.  Sweat ran freely from her face,
and her hands were white with tension.  Alex, feeling helpless, gripped the
sides of his chair, leaning forward, jumping and starting in sympathy with every
sudden movement, every avoiding action.  The Boa ECM'd the missile before it had
gone a tenth of the distance between the two ships.  the Nemesis slid smoothly
along its belly and again turned side on, strafing the sensitive underparts as
it matched the giant's slow roll.  And then it happened.  From somewhere, out of
nowhere, pulsing laser fire made a direct aft hit on them.  the Nemesis
shuddered and stuttered and was forced into a rapid, dizzying roll.  Alex swore,
feeling his body wrenched by the seat harness.  The shock had nearly taken his
head off.  He straightened up, assessing the situation:  there were two Mambas
behind, and they were closing rapidly on the maw of an Anaconda; it hovered
there in the void, like a giant net waiting to swallow them.  'Let's see you get
out of this ...' Alex said loudly, and glanced at Elyssia to see why she was
running so straight.  She was slumped in her chair; Blood flowed freely from her
scalp and nose.  Her eyes were closed.  She must have had her seat belt too
loosely fastened, and had struck the console when the Cobra bucked.  Alex leaped
from his co-pilot's seat and literally wrenched the woman free, throwing her to
the floor.  this was no time for courtesy.  he buckled in, stabbed fire at the
Anaconda's ram-scoop, then overflew, dodging laser and outrunning a missile,
which then closed on him with alarming speed before he was able to destroy it.
The planet Cirag was ahead of them once more.  he began to run for safety, and
then thought an alarming thought:  what guarantee did he have that the Coriolis
station would protect him if he got in range?  He had no such guarantee.  The
space stations were as likely to be against him as the ships that pursued him.
But if he could let them know what he carried, if he could communicate that he
carried their god creatures, perhaps they would send their fighters to keep the
freebooters at bay.  To his right a Mamba appeared out of nowhere.  he rolled
the Nemesis and shot from his rear laser, then slowed speed, span and strafed
the killer vessel from his port gun, watching the mamba tumble out of control,
not destroyed, just dead.  If he could only release the cargo, jettison the
cannisters containing the Mymurth life-systems, perhaps the pursuit would end.
He and Elyssia would be out of pocket by three hundred credits, but so what?
Neither he nor Elyssia were elite, yet.  He might feel like an elite combateer,
but faced with this sort of - A Mamba strafed him.  Shields screamed.  he
targeted a missile, but used side-fire to battle with the attacker ...  - faced
with this sort of pressure, neither of them could survive.  Elyssia came round,
staggered to her feet and stared, through blood- encrusted eyes, at the combat.
Cirag came closer.  A tiny spinning point of silver light winked and beckoned to
them, but the sight of it did not fill Alex with joy.  'There must be more than
Mymurth in those cannisters ...' Elyssia said quietly.  'Let's discuss it
later,' Alex retorted, as he rolled and veered to escape the fire coming from
the closest of the big ships.  The woman left the bridge.  hanging on for dear
life, she went down to the cargo bay ...  And suddenly the attack finished.
Alex nearly jumped with suprise.  One moment his tail had been hot, and his port
laser almost at exploding point.  the next, nothing.  The heavy lights of the
massive pirate ships dropped away into the background.  tow of the Mambas
continued to dog his tail for a moment, firing last, optimistic bursts of fire.
Then they vanished, streaking away into darkness, away from the sun.  Alex
slowed the Nemesis and checked damage levels.  They were not seriously hurt, but
two missiles were gone, and energy levels were low.  Their cargo was intact,
however, and if the pirates had backed off this close to the world, it could
only mean that Cirag would defend its visitors.  Elyssia came back onto the
bridge, holding the small, black box that was a thru-Vis camera.  'They look
like turtles.  They stink like turtles.  They're as boring as turtles.  But I've
taken a couple of Thru-Vis shots, just to see if anything else is hiding in
there ...' '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 Cirag Orbit Space.' 'Cobra class trader, the
Nemesis,' Alex said.  'We have a cargo of Mymurth.  Open the gates.' There was
silence for a while, through the channel remained open because it continues 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, likes eyes, tiny in the dark void space
beyond.  Alex looked at the Thru-Vis 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 lifeforms 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
closed in so ravenously ...  'There's good bounty on Tharglets.  The navy pay
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 was to destroy us.  They won't want any
evidence left of this ...' Alex stared at the space station.  For a moment
Elyssia's word 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, brightly
lit, a gleaming yellow beam that cast the shadow of the ship against 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 not 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 as you ...' 'Luck of the draw,' Alex said.  'the
pilot of that ship killed my father ...' 'Killed my whole family!  We were
escaping 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 Cobra 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, 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 showed a jump capability of four, and rising ...
In the calm sea, wrapped around by sunfire, the Nemesis hovered, and waited.
Somewhere in the brilliant glow of the plasma arm the Cobra searched for them,
but perhaps they were safe, now, safe from scanning, or from probing, since no
electronic eye or ear could pierce the intense radiation field of the corona.
'Five light years and climbing.  get ready to go, we're already targeted ...'
'I'm ready,' Alex said.  He tried not to think of the consequences of such a
long, unsupervised jump ...  In the first instance they would just jump small
distances, but they hyperdrive mechanism wouldn't tolerate too many such feeble
movements.  Alex turned the Nemesis so that it gently span in a circle,
searching the flickering, shadowy fire for danger.  'Five point five light
years.  A minute more.  Just sixty seconds ...' 'Just thirty seconds ...  we're
filling up lovely ...' The ship hummed.  Alex dripped with sweat.  'Just twenty
seconds more, Alex, and we can fly like star seed ...' On the scanners, the
merest flicker of light hinted at the presence of the Cobra.  It was on the
other side of a strand of plasma; a curtain of fire seperated them.  Nemesis and
the killer stood motionless in space, facing each other through the great
erupting wave of sunfire.  'We're ready to go,' Elyssia said.  'Alex.  Go!
Now!' Alex Ryder shrugged her off.  'No,' he said.  'Not yet ...' 'Alex!' He
pushed the ship towards the fire.  The flickering, ghostly image on The scanners
moved too.  Closing And with a sudden cry, Alex stabbed speed into the Nemesis'
engines, and raced towards the veil of flame and plasma.  All vision had gone.
All he could see was his father's face; and the white ball of flame that had
been the Avalonia ...  All he could feel was grief, and anger, and hate ...  All
he knew was that he had a missile targeted on the Cobra, and that he had one
last, desperate chance ...  The ships closed.  The distance between them was the
distance of the plasma veil.  It played on the hull of the Nemesis, and the
shields screamed and complained.  He could not go too deep ...  Not too far
in...  Too dangerous ...  He fired the missile.  The tiny vessel sped into the
sunfire, weaving and ducking as it homed on the Cobra.  It didn't show on Alex's
scanner.  It didn't show on the Cobra's scanner.  Not until it was too late ...
The Cobra triggered its ECM.  Alex saw the burst of brightness, the sudden
detonation ...  and then he saw the great fire ball that gyrated around the
destroyed missile.  Momentum, heat, plasma, fire ...  all gathered together into
a ball of death that swept from the corona and engulfed the Cobra.  No shield
known could stand against such intense energy, the raw energy of a sun, stung
and screaming, blown into a great tidal wave of explosive terror.  The Cobra
bathed in light and fire.  Alex watched the scanner, and suddenly ...  The light
was gone.  The Cobra was dead.  Destroyed.  Gone forever.  The Nemesis slowed
and turned, went back to safety.  No-one on the bridge said a word.  But in the
bright light of the ageing sun, tears glistened on two faces.
    
                        ------------------- 
 
                        CHAPTER EIGHT: CODA 
 
The holoFac of Rafe Zetter gleamed and shimmered on the bridge of the Nemesis as
if with pride.  Behind it, the full face of Lave was a welcome and relaxing
sight.  The last of the Mymurth and their precious parasites had been off-loaded
into two Navy Asp-type ships.  The final payment had not yet been agreed, but
the figure would not be less than on hundred credits per creature.  'I knew you
could do it,' Rafe said, chewing happily and stroking his wispy sidewhiskers.
'Had to be sure.  But was confident to get you to Cirag before you were ready.'
'We could have been killed,' Alex muttered.  'That system was crawling ...' 'But
a good combateer, even an elite combateer, knows when to run, and how to run.
I'm proud of you ...  you ran and scored.' And as he spoke, so on the screen a
message came through from the Galactic Police HQ on Lave Coriolis 6.
 
Congratulations to Alex Ryder, and thanks on behalf of the Galactic Co-
operative of Worlds for your efforts and skill in destroying pirate vessels as
documented by you, and verified by on-board V-film.  We have pleasure in
assigning you the Combat Status of 'Deadly'.  Your legal status of 'Offender'
has been negated.  You new rating as Deadly will be logged in the GalNetwork
within a standard day.  'Select wisely in battle, and be strong.'
 
So there it was.  Alex was not yet twenty earth years of age, had come within
one step of being rated more highly as a combateer than most people would even
dream about.  He was deadly; he had killed the Cobra; why the Cobra had killed
his father Alex hadn't thought to ask ...  of the ship's pilot, at least.  He
had guessed that the ship and its bounty killer pilot had simply been earning a
wage.  Instead, he said to rafe, 'Did you know the ship was at Cirag?' 'Had a
good idea of it, Alex.  That's why we sent the Tharglets with you.  Nobody, but
nobody - if they're a tad evil - can resist booty like that.  I knew it would
bring every freebooter for a light year after you, but I reckoned you could
handle them.  Most importantly, I was damn sure that your cargo would bring out
the Cobra.' 'You fought well.  You showed the sort of instinct for combat that I
remember in Jason.  He was right.  You are the man to follow him.' 'Follow him
where?' Rafe chuckled and shook his head.  'You see, that's the big question.
Your father was chasing the mythical planet Raxxla.  Does it exist, or does it
not?  If it does, then on Raxxla there's an alien construct that's a gateway to
other Universes, and all that's in those Universes in the way of bounty, and
treasures, and aliens, and life ...' 'Jason Ryder was convinced that Raxxla
existed.  That's why he trained for, and became part of, the Dark Wheel, the
legend-seekers.  I hadn't heard much from him or about him for some time until
just before he died, when he told me he'd found evidence for the real existence
of Raxxla.  He came back from Deep Space to get a proper team together ...' Rafe
smiled bitterly.  'But just before he was due to go back he decided to take a
safe-worlds holiday jaunt with his son ...  and an assassin was waiting for
him.' 'But why?' Alex asked.  'Why kill him for finding Raxxla?' 'Because there
are people on Raxxla already.  This is only a guess mind you, but from what
happened to Jason I'd say it was close to being right.  We've long suspected
that a corps of elites live there, and are exploiting the gateway.  They're
powerful, twisted men.  Powerful enough to hire an assassin to kill the threat
to their dominance.' Rafe leaned a little closer to Alex, his bright eyes
gleaming, an intense look on his grizzled face.  'I've put you through your
paces, Alex, you and Elyssia both.  The Dark Wheel needs you.  Both of you.  But
believe me, what you've just been through is nothing to what you face now.
You've got to become elite, Alex.  And that means a lot of training, and lot of
fighting, and maybe a lot of months, even years.  But then the Universe will
open up before you in a way you never imagined possible.' Alex stood silent,
thoughtful, watching the old man.  In the corner, half in shadows, Elyssia stood
and watched too, frightened by what she was hearing.  'Has the grief gone?' Rafe
asked, and Alex nodded.  The old trader smiled.  'How does it feel to be rich?'
'Empty,' Alex said, and Rafe Zetter laughed.  'You'll do for the Dark Wheel,
Alex.  You'll do ...'