by Terry Mixon
Some of the others in the room were beginning to stir. Jared figured he woke a little faster than the others because of his implants, but had no way to be sure.
Rawlins had to be watching him. Jared hadn’t known the mess had a camera, but it made sense. All the common areas probably had them. That complicated his escape plans. Or it would when he finally got around to thinking one up.
First, he needed to know what they could see. And what resources he could muster.
He put his head in his hands and looked around for the camera feed through his implants. There it was. The camera was in the corner by the door behind him. He had an odd view of himself slumped over the table. Thankfully, there was no audio. That must’ve terminated when Rawlins killed the direct communications link.
Jared felt around for the computer, but it wasn’t available. They’d either shut it down or isolated it. That was probably how they’d managed to take control of the ship.
The only other feed in range of his implants showed the corridor outside the mess. A half-dozen Pentagaran marines in armor with weapons at the ready stood guard. His people wouldn’t get past them without terrible bloodshed. He had to find a different way out.
First, however, he needed to get his people on their feet. Feeling a little steadier, he began searching for his senior officers. He found lieutenants Anderson and Ramirez piled together in the kitchen. Charlie Graves lay next to them. His Chief Engineer and Doctor Stone were in the crew’s mess. None of them was awake yet.
He had no idea if water would help, but he filled a glass and poured it over Charlie’s face. That merely left him with an unconscious—and now wet—First Officer.
While he waited for them to wake up, he made his way through the kitchen and looked for cameras. He found one overlooking the main cooking area, but the remainder of the kitchen was not under view. He made that blind spot his new headquarters. Everyone in the two mess areas would be easily visible to the mutineers. If he wanted to act without their knowledge, it would have to be from in here.
He might be able to override the cameras, but he didn’t want to count on it. One mistake and they would figure out that he had access to them through his implants. Once they realized he had implants, the edge they gave him would be gone.
The kitchen took up quite a bit of area with freezers and refrigeration units. He remembered coming through here when they’d first discovered Courageous. It was like a maze. A maze that might hold a secret exit.
He was beginning to lose confidence in that possibility when he sensed something through the floor. A major engineering node, complete with repair remotes. There wasn’t any direct access between the kitchen and engineering space, but he might be able to overcome that obstacle. It was time to bring the rest of the team in on his plans.
He made his way back to his officers and found them awake. Graves looked as though a grav truck had run over him. He’d found a hand towel to dry his face. “What the hell is going on? Captain?”
“It seems we have a mutiny in our hands. A number of Pentagaran personnel have seized the ship and used the anti-boarding systems to take us out. Their intent is to return to Pentagar and overthrow the Monarchy. I’d imagine they’re affiliated with the people that tried to assassinate King Raymond.”
Graves shook his head. “That’s insane. This is a powerful ship, but not to that degree. The Pentagarans have a fleet of their own and the mutineers can’t overwhelm a planet full of people with one undermanned battlecruiser. We don’t even have that many missiles left.”
“They obviously disagree. I’m beginning to formulate a plan to take the ship back, but we have a problem. They have us locked up in the mess halls and kitchen, and they have armed and armored men in the corridors ready to shoot anyone that comes out. Even if we manage to unlock the doors. They also have cameras watching the main areas.”
Baxter pinched the bridge of his nose. “That limits our options pretty significantly. We have no weaponry, they have us locked in an isolated area with no easy exits, and they took the main computer off-line. I was just getting a team together to go find out why it went down when they took us out. Come to that, whatever weapon they used is probably capable of taking us down right here if we get froggy. How do we overcome that?”
Jared shared a glance with Doctor Stone and his first officer. “We may have some extra resources at our disposal, but first let’s get everybody on their feet and get the marines grouped. Doctor, if you would go check anyone that’s not awake to see if they need medical assistance, that would be a good start.”
“Aye, sir.” The doctor gestured for Zia and Pasco to follow her and went into the crew’s mess.
Graves looked around. “Are we under surveillance right now? Can they hear us?”
“They can see us, but they can’t hear us. Walk with me and we’ll get out from under the eyes of our enemies. There’s an engineering node one deck down under the freezers. I may be able to use the remotes to open the floor and let us into the conduits. For this to work, it’s going to have to be small teams so that the mutineers don’t figure out what we’re doing.”
The XO nodded. “What are you thinking? One team to go to the armory, another to seize engineering, and one to bring the main computer back online?”
“We can send some of the marines to armor up in case we don’t succeed, but if we can bring the main computer online, this fight is over.”
“I’m surprised that you’re so up to date on where the repair remotes are housed and what angles the cameras can see,” Baxter said. “They must’ve had somebody in the computer team. The equipment we used to isolate the main computer is still in place. If they had the right codes, isolating it would be easy. An obvious oversight on my part looking back, but I wasn’t expecting a mutiny. I was more worried that the main computer would get ideas.”
“And what do we do if we can’t restore the computer?” Graves asked. “What if we have to take the ship back by force? Are we going to be in a position to do that?”
“I certainly hope so,” Jared said.
Baxter looked around at the people who were starting to filter into the kitchen. “It looks like we’re getting some attention. How, might I ask, are we planning to give the engineering remotes instructions? Morse code tapped on the deck? This plan may be over before it starts because I can’t imagine how we’re going to get the damn things to open up the deck.”
Jared smiled. “It turns out I have a little surprise in store for you and the crew. I think I’ll hold onto the specifics for the moment, but trust me when I tell you that we’ll be able to give some instructions to the remotes. Charlie, I want you to coordinate with the marines and get some assault teams ready to go. Dennis, you do the same with your engineering people. Once we’re ready, we’re going to have to move fast.”
The two officers nodded and made their way out past the growing crowd.
Jared cleared his throat. “Everyone, listen up. I know you have a lot of questions and that you’re very worried, but I don’t have time to address everything individually right now. I want everyone to move back into the mess halls. As of right now, the kitchen is a command post. Find your section leaders and make sure that they have a good head count. Be ready for orders. Move out.”
He found a place to sit at one of the tables as everyone filed out of the kitchen. He’d best start thinking about contingency plans because, as sure as anything, something would go wrong in a big way once they broke out.
He’d have one shot at taking control of Courageous. If he blew it, his people would die. And, on top of that, his only allies in the sector would probably be overthrown. He had to get everything right the first time.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“We need to take the ship back,” Kelsey said. Lieutenant Reese, Talbot, and she had commandeered the rear of the flight deck to discuss their situation. “We also need to contact the people they left on the shipyards. If we can.” She consulted her implants. “They both just p
assed around the planet and out of communications range. We’ll have to wait a half an hour for the damaged one to come back into range. Another half hour for the other.”
Reese shook his head. “Taking the ship back is easier said than done. They know exactly where we are and they can blast us if we try to reach orbit. I don’t want to say this is impossible, but the odds of us being killed without getting near the ship approach certainty.”
Kelsey rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Dammit. There can’t possibly be that many of them on the ship. Surely, the Pentagarans did some kind of background check on these people. How can they possibly take over the entire ship?”
“With only a few people to carry out the attack, I’d wager they used the ship’s anti-boarding system to disable the crew. If the mutineers had enough access, they could trigger it all over the ship. They probably left a few compartments alone so that their people would remain conscious.”
She nodded. “And they probably used that same access to reactivate whatever cutout we had installed for the computer. There is no way Courageous would allow this to happen. They used our own precautions to hang us. But they made one mistake. They let the Captain back on board.”
Reese frowned slightly. “While I have the highest respect for Captain Mertz, exactly how does that count as a mistake?”
She smiled. “Because I’m not the only member of our crew with implants.”
The marine’s eyes widened. “Seriously? When did that happen? Someone would’ve noticed him spending a couple of days in the medical center. Are you sure?”
“I’m positive. He only has the cranial implants and medical nanites, so his recovery time was short. I found out at breakfast today. Having him on board the ship is even better than having me there. He knows a lot more about the ship’s systems than I do, and if anyone can figure out how to break free of whatever prison they have him in, it’s Jared.”
Reese paced across the flight deck. “That might be enough. Hell, it’s going to have to be enough.”
Talbot looked up from the console he was sitting at. “LT? We have another problem. I rerouted the drones toward the new search area and I’m picking up ground movement on one of them. Take a look.”
Lieutenant Reese walked over and stared past Talbot. Kelsey linked directly into the drone’s feed and immediately saw what the Senior Sergeant meant. Dozens of savage looking humans loping through the forest. As the drone continued over the area, she saw that it was more like hundreds. Perhaps thousands. The Pale Ones were on the move.
“Where are those things going?” Reese asked.
“Not towards us, if that’s what you’re asking,” Talbot said. “They’re headed in the general direction of the survivors’ facility. They probably detected our landing. The drone estimates there are thousands of the things on the move. I’ll wager there are a lot more of them on the move from other locations.”
“Wonderful,” Kelsey muttered. “Bell’s people are vulnerable. The Pale Ones can just keep throwing bodies at them until they get in. We need to locate that AI. It sent them on this mission. It can stop them. We just have to capture it intact. Lieutenant Reese, that mission objective just became mandatory.”
The next hour went by with excruciating slowness. The damaged shipyard didn’t respond to their signals. Reese had sent one of the drones to send a short-range transmission to Bell and his people. Maybe their defenses were better than the Terrans expected.
The team on the intact shipyard responded, though. They confirmed Kelsey’s worst fears. Courageous was on the move. They’d left orbit and were heading for the flip point back to Pentagar. Since the ship was faster than the pinnaces, there was no way they could retake her. It was all up to Jared. She’d just have to focus on her own problems and trust him to do his part.
Shortly after that, a jammer in orbit went active and blocked them from communicating with anyone.
Finally, Talbot spoke up. “I might have found something.”
Kelsey again accessed the drone’s signal directly. He was watching the feed from over a large lake.
Talbot tapped his screen. “There’s a small facility on the shore. Those look like transmitters on the roof. Big ones. Capable of reaching orbit.”
The facility he was talking about was more of a small building. One story tall and poorly constructed. Functional without a hint of grace. Definitely a Pale Ones construct. It couldn’t possibly have room for a major computer system, though. There wasn’t room for even the power supply one would require.
She shook her head. “It’s too small. Admittedly, I have no idea why it’s out here, but it can’t have all the equipment that they need.”
“See those cables running into the water? I think the computers and power supplies are under water. It would shield their emissions signature from prying eyes. The transmitters look like they’re tight beam. Unless someone was right on top of them, no one would ever know they were there.”
“But why would they need to be coy? They own this planet and they’ve been in control for five hundred years.”
“Why keep sending the same size fleet to attack Pentagar? They only just completed a second shipyard. They could’ve built one a lot faster if they’d wanted to. We’re not really in a position to guess why they do anything. Some things just don’t make sense. They may never make sense to us.”
Reese straightened. “We’re not seeing anything else and time is running out. We need to act if we want to save the people in that facility. If we’re right about this being the place, there’ll be defenses that we can’t see. We need to take out the underwater facility and then we come back to secure the transmitter.”
Kelsey frowned. “What use is the transmitter going to be? They aren’t going to be calling for help. We’ve taken over this entire system.”
The marine gave her a serious look. “Perhaps, but there might be a record of everything it has sent. Are there regular visits from other systems? I seriously doubt this is the only place where the rebellion left an AI to run things.”
“True.” She allowed herself to sigh. “I hope this works.”
“Me, too. If you’ll excuse me, Princess, I have an attack to plan. You and Talbot can coordinate on how you’ll follow us in. Remember, he goes in first.”
Kelsey stuck her tongue out at his back when he walked away. “That man makes me tired.”
“And you give him grey hair. Come on, Princess. We both know how this plays out. We attack the base and you do something that makes me want to scream. Then you figure out a way to make the LT want to space you. And in the end, you do what you want to anyway.”
“It doesn’t sound so bad when you put it that way. Thanks.”
He shook his head and followed Reese.
Kelsey took control of the drone overlooking the lake. She brought it around for a closer look at the communications building. Not seeing any obvious weaponry on the roof, she dropped the drone down for a direct look at the building. Yes, that would announce their presence, but if the AI didn’t know they were already there from the drones buzzing around, then it was even stupider than she’d imagined.
She didn’t know much about communications hardware, but the transmitters and their associated hardware looked old. The weather had obviously taken a toll on them and there were signs of repairs. That meant that this facility wasn’t brand-new. It had been here a while. In her mind, that was actually good news. Why build a decoy set up when there was absolutely no need to have one? Then again, why keep attacking a planet the same way for five hundred years?
Digging down in the scanner controls for the drone, she found some filters. One of them looked like a high sensitivity IR scanner. If there were people in that building, they’d show up in IR as long as they weren’t in a shielded room. She changed the settings and scanned the building again. No sign of any people, but there were scattered heat sources. Probably equipment. Another sign the Pale Ones hadn’t abandoned the facility.
She took the dro
ne higher and did an IR scan of the forest. There were animals, including some that were large enough to be human, but none was the right shape when she checked them out in more detail. A spot check of a few showed they were large herbivores. Considering the personalities of the Pale Ones, any critter in its right mind would head far away if the savages were present.
Kelsey opened a channel to Reese and Talbot. “I did an IR scan of the building. There doesn’t seem to be any Pale Ones inside. Ditto an IR scan of the forest.”
The marine officer switched to the general channel. “Listen up. We’ll be making an assault in twenty minutes. Bring everything we need to breach and storm an underwater facility. The Pale Ones likely have it heavily guarded. We’re on a schedule, people. If we don’t take the AI down quickly, the last survivors on this planet die. Let’s show this bastard what it means to have Imperial Marines dropping on his ass.”
She couldn’t help smiling at their cheers. The AI wouldn’t know what hit it.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
An hour later, the command staff was back in the kitchen with Doctor Leonard in tow. Jared had cajoled the cameras into recording the last hour for use during their escape. If he could get the cameras to play the recorded time back and no one noticed the jump from present to past, they might be able to sneak right out from under the noses of their captors.
“Doctor Stone,” he said, “let’s start off with the condition of our people.”
The Fleet doctor smiled a little. “Good news on that front. Everyone has recovered from the effects of the stunners with little more than a headache. We have a few secondary injuries from falls, but nothing worse than a fractured wrist. We got off very lucky.”
He turned his attention to his XO. “Charlie, what about a head count? How many people do we have unaccounted for?”
Graves grimaced. “A few more than I’d like, but less than it could have been. Without access to the personnel files, I might be off by as many as five people. Some of the Pentagarans worked in multiple departments and memories are a little shaky right now. Worst case puts the enemy at about just over four dozen people.”
