Jan Lomona and the Sirens of Amagad

1998/1999 novel by Mark Newbold

Three years after Episode IV – A New Hope

PROLOGUE

His starship had gone.

Jan Lomona spun around docking bay 23, frantically trying to fathom where his freighter could have vanished.  He had sprinted as fast as he could to get down here, the metallic footsteps of Stormtroopers and local militia echoing dimly in his ears, the approaching yells of Gaalent’s men trying to block his only escape route.  And now, just when he thought he had evaded them all and made it back to his ship….

It had gone.

Bad enough that this entire operation had been a complete and total disaster.  Bad enough that his activities had attracted the unwanted attentions of local Imperial detachments.  Bad enough that he would have to return to his current employer, the crime boss Glann Cipple, and tell him that yet another apparently promising deal had turned sour.  These small time operations, Jan thought, couldn’t smuggle a synth-ale into a Hardball game.  He’d have to think fast and clear.  Time was rapidly dwindling and the doors would only hold for so long before they gained access, or found a slicer to crack the code.  Jan ran to the wall and tried to raise the Portmaster.  No answer. No burst of static or even the usually annoying holding jingle.  Strange.  He spun around, leaning against the wall.  Somehow they had rail-roaded him down here, led him astray.  Think, think!  He cursed himself and ran back to the door.  Only thing to do was to take his chances and run for it.  Checking his Blaster he keyed in the code and waited for the doors to part.  With a protesting creak they did.  Lomona poked his head out of the docking bay.  Looking left and right he saw no signs of movement, just the scurry of a rodent a few meters down the hall.  Time to move.  Taking a deep breath he strode into the corridor, his hand ready on the butt of his Blaster pistol.

He walked for what seemed an eternity before he came across anyone else, but it was just a blue-skinned Duros pilot making its way back to its hangar.  Or so it seemed. You can’t be too careful.  Jan turned his head and watched the Duros disappear from sight, not looking over its shoulder.  Lomona relaxed slightly and continued his walk.  Leading up from the hangar bays was the Portmasters office.  He decided to go in there first and locate the Berone Sunrise, his beloved Stock Heavy Freighter.

Cutting to the left with a flash he left the shadowy confines of the corridor and entered another hangar bay that would lead him onto the main run to the Portmasters office.  Without a second glance he sprinted the forty meter span and hit the other wall.  Something didn’t feel right, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.  Maybe it was the lack of people that usually signified a busy starport.  Or was it the lack of sound, he wasn’t sure but the tingling sensation at the back of his neck just wouldn’t go away.  One of these days this job will go smoothly for me, he thought.  Then again nobody ever said it was going to be easy.  With another furtive glance and steady grip on his Blaster he opened the door….

Blackness.  Total and utter darkness.  This surely wasn’t regular procedure in starports.  It could only mean one thing.  They knew where he was and were trying to box him in.  No other way around it, he’d have to make it to the Portmaster soon and find his ship.  Providing the Portmaster even knew where it was - you could never tell on these spice smuggling worlds.

   “I hate this job.” He grumbled under his breath as he closed the door behind him and felt his way along the wall to what he was sure was the Portmasters office.  A faint illuminated sign marked its location and warily he stepped towards it.

He entered the Portmasters block, immediately noticing how warm it was.  A kettle was whistling in a back room and the air reeked of ozone.  Someone had been shot.  And not too long ago.  Jan edged his way to the rear of the office where calls were received and found the slumped body of a middle-aged female human smoking in the chair. It was a recent killing, no more than a few short minutes ago.  She probably never knew what had happened.  He cursed and ran his hand through his short auburn hair as he checked the callboard.  His own call was the last to reach the board before it was switched off.  Presumably they had traced his call and killed the Portmaster.  So they certainly knew where he was. Jan frowned.  Definitely no time to spare.  Leaning over the control board Jan released the docking hold on all bays to cause maximum mayhem and confusion and then blasted the control panel. As he exited he noticed a computer display showing all the vehicles currently docked in the port.  His starship was secure in bay 23.  Somehow his pursuers had changed the bay signage and made an empty port appear to be his bay.  Clever, but now he knew the true location of the Sunrise.  It lay just around the corner, and without taking a moment to think he sprinted out of the room and made his way to his waiting starship. Immediately he cursed his bad judgement.

   “Lomona!” 

Jan slowed down in his run but didn’t turn.  He knew the voice only too well.

   “What do you want Gaalent?”  Jan spun around and continued to walk backwards.  Quickly. “We both know this deal’s a waste of time, for you and for Glann.  Let me get back to Amagad and I’ll cook up a good excuse on the way.” 

Gaalent smiled and came to a stop.  As did his five henchmen.

   “You know I can’t allow that Jan. We’ve both been in the game long enough to know that’s not the way it works.”  His face turned hard. “No, I’m afraid you’ll be coming with me and my men.  As a guest,” He motioned towards his men, “or as a prisoner.” 

Jan nodded solemnly.  This wasn’t following any kind of plan.

   “Have it your way Gaalent.”  Lomonas Blaster had cleared its holster before he’d finished saying his old adversaries name, and before Gaalent realised it three of his men were watching their lives flash before their eyes.  And before Gaalent could vent his fury in a yell Jan had took off down the narrow corridors leading to the Sunrise.

   “After him you fools!”  Gaalent unclipped his own Blaster rifle, which hung in a back sling and joined his men in the hunt.  Lomona couldn’t have got far, even if he was a long-limbed A-desandian.  However, when they reached the turn of the corridor and looked one hundred meters down they saw no sign of the towering smuggler.

   “Damn him.  Where has he gone?  No one’s that fast. Not even him.”

Jan wasted no time making good his advantage and breathed as shallow as he could in the service access in the wall.  One false move and he’d be within their line of sight.  Within their line of fire.  Lomona had no doubt that Gaalent would make good on his promise and not allow him to leave.  Unless Jan could get the drop on him first.

There was no sound from the other end of the corridor where he had recently entered.  Had Gaalent moved his men on?  Or were they heading up the corridor to block him off?  He couldn’t hear them, so he poked his head out.

The alarmed passer-by yelled as Jan seemingly ghosted through the wall, stumbling backwards and propelling himself into a waste bin behind him.

   “Oh great,” Frowned Jan as he left the alcove and sprinted the remaining sixty meters down to the curve of the corridor, hoping against hope that Gaalents men weren’t entering the corridor behind him.  He skidded around the bend just as he heard the familiar barrage of laser fire, some echoing off the metal of the bin, some reaching down to the wall to his right.  He was hidden from their sight but already he could hear footsteps and voices coming his way.  Best not to stick around.  Ahead of him was another door, which led into some ancillary offices. It was locked.

   “To Fornax with this!” He cursed, and with a tight swing of his boot brought the door crashing inwards.  Perhaps his luck had changed.  One of Gaalents men was on the other side of it, but never got the chance to move.  Jan smiled as he entered but he knew the game really was afoot now.  Gaalent had five men with him.  He’d blasted three and doored another.  All things being even Jan would have been in a two-on-one situation.  Then again, all things being even Jan would have been sealing a successful deal for Glann and basking in the glory that came with it. He shifted across the room, sliding over tables and chairs and dropped to the floor just in time to avoid a burst of laser fire, erupting in the air above him.  This was serious.  He tucked, rolled and came out of the manoeuvre facing his assailant, Blaster up.  No time for niceties.  One precise blast to the heart brought the man down and out of the game.  Behind the fallen gunman stood two more and Lomona aimed high and wide, splashing shots around the doorway.  They ducked back reflexively and regrouped.  Jan took the momentary advantage to take out the centre light and gain better cover behind a large monitor unit.  He watched the shadows of the assailants cautiously edge into the now dim room, the only illumination coming from the light outside.  Pressing his tactical advantage Jan threw the nearest thing he had to hand, which happened to be a canister of coolant oil, into the far corner.  Both men turned to lay down fire - the moment their attention was turned from him he blasted them both efficiently into the ground.  Mission accomplished. Lomona twisted on the floor and scurried towards the rear exit that would presumably bring him back onto the corridor he’d just sprinted down.

It was still only half-lit but he could see enough to tell him he was exiting at least twenty meters further down the corridor than he was when he entered it.  And better still, he could hear Gaalent trying to marshall his men into a flanking position.

   “Head down that corridor over there.  And watch your step, he’s not to be underestimated.”                                                                                                                                        

   “That’s right Gaalent.  I’m not.  Drop your weapons.”  Lomona stood directly behind Gaalent and his two remaining men, the heavy Blaster still smoking in his hand. “I don’t want to do this Gaalent.  We’ve been friends for too long.  Just let me get back to the Sunrise and I give you my word I’ll make this sound good for Glann.”  Jan smiled.  “Call it a scam, for old times sake.”

Gaalent squinted at Lomona, disturbed for being outmatched so easily.  Annoyed at being dictated to by gunpoint.  Unsure as to whether Lomona was telling the truth.  Against his better judgement and on the insistence of the Blaster pointing directly at his heart he decided to relent.

   “Go.  Now. Before I change my mind.  And tell Glann Cipple to stay the hell away from Gista if he knows what’s good for him!” 

Lomona grinned his most smug grin and backed away down the long corridor.

“I’ll be sure to let Mister Cipple know exactly how you feel.”

Her retro engines were already warm by the time Jan reached the Berone Sunrise, her batteries fully charged, power cells primed and ready for take-off.  Jan backed up the ramp with his gun still firmly in his hand.  Gaalent hadn’t tried anything in the short walk back to the Sunrise, but with the ramp down it didn’t mean he wouldn’t try something now. Springing it shut behind him, he threw his orange jacket off and made his way to the cockpit, where there waiting for him in the pilots chair with her long, shapely legs perched on the controls sat his fiancée Frans Latka.  She grinned and swept back her long fiery red hair as he entered the cockpit and folded into the co-pilots chair.

   “How’d it go lover?  Teach Gaalent the error of his ways?  Or did you just scare him like you always do?”  She already knew the answer, and Jan knew it.  Jan and Gaalent had had this dance a hundred times before, and would doubtless do so again. 

He pulled on his flight gloves and grabbed at a flask of jet-juice he kept hidden under the dash.

   “You know Gaalent as well as I do.  As long as he thinks he can make a scam without looking down the business end of a Blaster then he’ll try it.”  He took a generous gulp, “Although having said that, he had a good look down the barrel of this baby today. Come on, let’s blow this dustbowl and get back to civilisation.  And do me a favour?” 

Frans nodded.

   “Put some clothes on. I’ve really got to concentrate to get out of this port.”