by Ryan Krauter
The first transport flew low over the frigate's hull, lining up on the dorsal resupply hatch. It coasted almost to a stop, rear doors open and cargo compartment open to space. The fully suited Avenger personnel stepped out into space, hanging there for only a second before the tiny thrusters in their packs shot them down to the hull where their gravity boots and hand anchors could be used. The transport raced ahead, pulling up and away to clear the area. The second transport pulled a similar maneuver as it flew past the closed hangar bay door on the upper aft portion of the ship just ahead of the engines.
Both transports dropped off sixteen men and women wearing armored combat spacesuits. They expertly placed breaching charges, both on the hangar door and resupply hatch. A second later, the shaped charges were triggered, ripping holes in the pirate's hull.
The whole ship rocked and Captain Ares felt a painful pressure change in his ears. His hull had been breached, but he didn't know if it was that reckless Confed ship firing on him or if he had enemy boarders.
The bridge lights went out, then flickered as about half came back on. He saw the panicked look in his crew's faces; they weren't combat capable, and as much as they liked pushing others around they weren't up for a truly serious fight.
That's when he heard the sound of military grade blasters. "Repel boarders!" he yelled, but most of the crew were just plain old scared stupid. He'd have to find a way to motivate them.
He drew his own blaster and shot the sensor operator seated behind him. "Get on your feet and defend this ship, or I'll shoot you all right here!"
His actions had the desired effect; the small bridge crew ran out the rear hatch into the corridors of the ship, each grabbing a weapon from the equipment locker by the aft bulkhead.
Loren and Velk were the last ones into the hangar. As such, it was their job to place the patch over the hole their team had made upon entry. The charge was designed to make a certain size hole; the folded-up patch panel, which sprung into its full size when Loren released the clasps on the case, was marginally bigger. Placed over the breach and hosed down with a handheld spray gun, the panel bonded itself to the hull and hardened in short order. It wasn't rated for impacts, but it was as strong as any of the rest of the frigate's hull. More importantly at present, it was airtight.
Velk secured the patch panel as he'd been instructed while Loren swept the compartment with his HMR-12 'Hammer' rifle. There were two pirate bodies lying on the deck, and Velk inspected them for Loren.
"Compartment secure," the Priman offered.
Loren nodded. "Nice work."
Velk just shrugged.
Captain Ares knew his ship was lost. He could hear the Confed soldiers advancing a couple frames at a time as they leapfrogged their way to the bridge. Judging from what his barely-functioning internal scanners told him, they were back by the engines as well.
He ran to his quarters, hoping he'd get there before his ship was captured.
"XO," Loren heard through his helmet pickup, "how's the hangar?"
"Secure," he replied to the trooper on the other end.
"Ok, bring it on up to the bridge. We've swept a lot of the ship and are coming back down from the bow. We'll keep up that random traffic flow so there are always people wandering around searching."
"We're on the way," Loren replied.
"You let your subordinate give you orders?" Velk asked. Loren couldn't tell if the Priman was sporting a look of confusion, revulsion, maybe anger.
"These guys are my security folks, trained to do this job. I told them they're tactically in charge and me trying to stick my nose in their business wouldn't help anyone. It's ok to let your people do their jobs; when they see you trust them with that you'll be surprised what they can accomplish."
"Admirable," was all Velk could admit.
They walked down the main corridor as quietly as possible, Loren in the lead with Velk a few paces behind. Loren kept the rifle shouldered, muzzle down a bit, wondering if he shouldn't switch to his SSK in the confined space.
Suddenly a hatch opened and two pirates came flying out, the first one body slamming Loren and the second lunging at Velk with some sort of wrench in hand.
Loren bounced off the bulkhead, wind knocked out of him. The pirate latched onto the rifle and tried to wrench it from Loren's hands. They staggered back and forth as each fought for the upper hand. Finally, Loren stopped fighting back and instead ran towards the pirate, which sent the man against the bulkhead with Loren close up. He gave the man a knee to the ribs, then a right elbow to the jaw. The pirate's head snapped around and he tried to bring his face up to see his attacker. Loren just punched him in the throat, leading with his knuckles. The man fell right to the floor, gagging and retching as he tried to un-collapse his windpipe.
"If you puke on me, I will make you suffer," Loren warned, out of breath. Fights were hard, and he wasn't as skilled as someone like Halley Pascal. She knew about pressure points, using an opponent's momentum. All Loren knew was that if you hit somebody hard enough, they fell down and stayed that way for a while.
He spun around, rifle to his shoulder, to see what had happened to Velk. The Priman was standing there, patiently waiting for Loren to notice him, unconscious pirate as his feet.
"I am ready to proceed," he announced.
Loren could only nod. "To the bridge, then."
Halley, Web and Mithus had spent the first night carefully hand picking a small number of senators that would eventually be let in on the plan. Operational security dictated that the politicians not know until the last second, but the three of them assumed they'd be busy running the operation and not have time for counting bodies and keeping everyone in line. For that, they'd need some of the senators themselves to help take charge.
"Ok, so we have our chaperones picked out," recapped Web as the three of them sat at the end of a table in the commissary the next evening. "We know what each of us is doing during the evac and where our transportation will pick us up. But we still haven't decided on the distraction to kick off the festivities."
"We could fake a fight," Mithus offered as he looked at Web with a lopsided grin. "I could knock you out and during the confusion we jump them."
"Who says you'd take me out?" Web replied. "You're looking a little thin and weak there, you know. I might be able to take you."
"Boys," Halley interrupted. "The man we need is the guard on the outer perimeter, walking along the fence on the inside with us. He's wearing body armor and has a short range tactical comm setup; you can tell by the antenna stub on his shoulder. We need to eliminate him first before he calls in reinforcements from everywhere. If the guards inside the security station have to do it, they'll be scrambled and blocked by the virus that will attack their network when we start this." She glanced back at them to gauge their reaction. "Sent that one in last week; you're welcome. What's more, the guards on the inside here are lax; look at the way they shuffle around with their rifles slung half the time. They're used to guarding docile politicians, not combat prisoners. If we can grab even one of them, we'll control this courtyard in minutes. So, how do we get the guard with the radio?"
"I'll go up to him and get his attention," offered Web. "I'll do something to get him to focus just on me; maybe I'll make him mad and try to get him to smack me around a bit."
"Is that the part where you'll cry like a little girl?" asked Mithus innocently.
"Yes; I learned by watching you cry every time you ran out of steam after three or four pushups."
Mithus was trying hard not to smile. This officer was a cool operator; he wondered if Halley had tried to recruit him.
"So the guards eyeball him and we take them out?" asked Halley. "Seems too easy."
"Well, you two have to stay out of sight and out of mind. I'll have to let them kick me around for a little while. Then you two come in, save the day, and we move on to the next phase."
Halley didn't like it, of course, but there weren't many options. Without any support
or time to plan in-depth, she'd had to set the plan in motion and fill in the blanks. Ideally she would have showed up only a day or so before the mission (breaking in guns blazing and not entering as a prisoner), but she'd done enough digging to learn about the new truth drugs and assumed they'd use them on Web since he was 'only' a soldier and not a political prisoner that might be worth something in trade someday. Her appearance and the ruckus preceding it would focus attention on her instead. Her training would help her resist longer than Web would have, and all she needed to hold out for was three days. A hoped-for local contact had backed out of a deal for work on the extraction, so she'd improvised the best she could. In the meantime, she only hoped Web wasn't going to put himself in even more danger before they could escape.
The captured pirate ship raced through hyperspace. Avenger followed at a respectful distance which would give her plenty of time to drop out of hyper far behind if necessary. Loren and Velk stayed on the bridge, the taller Priman ducking constantly and eventually claiming a console to sit at and thus save his scalp from repeated attacks.
The first day had been uneventful. The pirate frigate had followed a course plotted to maximize their chances of avoiding contested space. It meant their journey would take longer, but any contact with Primans, Talarans or even Confed forces would lead to more trouble than they wanted. With Avenger following them, the pressure to stay undiscovered was intense because nothing would stir up the Primans like the hated Confed ship being spotted behind the front lines.
Loren and Velk had a sort of easy understanding. They shared the same ideals for their people and their interests aligned; neither would admit to the other but both hoped their alliance was more than a passing phase.
They often went hours without saying anything; Velk was not a chatty conversationalist, while Loren didn't have much idea how you started a conversation with the leader of a conquering enemy horde.
"So do you know for sure you have some allies where we're headed?" Loren asked as they both picked at the remains of their self-heating ration packs. Loren, not a fan of piracy or the ships they called home, tossed his wadded up packaging into a dark corner of the bridge. Velk folded his up and set it aside for disposal later.
"When I was a Representative, before you and your team captured me, I knew where I could find a friendly face. There were a number of them stationed at the facility on the planet we are headed to, but I could not say for sure if their assignments have changed."
"Well, I guess that'll have to do then." Loren pushed back on his chair and stood, crossing the few steps to where their equipment crates sat. There had been much debate over whether to allow Velk to have a weapon, but Loren himself had given the ok, saying it didn't much matter whether Velk had a gun or not because soon they'd be in Priman space anyway. If Velk meant to betray him, the possession of a weapon wouldn't matter.
"You want to try on your compression mask?" Loren asked.
"Not really."
"Can't blame you there. But we're heading to a Talaran planet, so you need to look like a human and I need to look like a different human."
It was at that moment that the hyperdrive field elected to destabilize, dropping the plodding vessel back into normal space with a jolt. Loren and Velk both held on to their consoles as crates, duffels and anything else not bolted down slid across the bridge. The ship's vibration and movement stabilized to the sound of the hull creaking and popping from the stress.
"That was..." Loren paused to find the right word.
"Unsettling," Velk finished.
"Yes."
"Will Avenger outrun us?"
"No, her sensors are good and her sensor operator is better. They'll drop out a safe distance behind us and wait. Until we send out the distress signal, they'll give us our space."
"Then we should find out what is the matter. Are you more skilled with the software or hardware of hyperdrives?"
"I can swear and hit things with a hammer," Loren said cheerfully. "I'll go yell at the engines themselves."
"I will attempt to restart the software here on the bridge then."
Four
Loren walked down the long gangway from bridge to engineering. Every few frames there were short walkways connecting the gangway to hatches along the bulkheads, which opened into compartments that lined the outer hull. At each end of the corridor there were vertical ladders going down one level to access cramped, private crew quarters. The two story compartment saved on construction costs versus a fully completed space with decking and ventilation, which gave the ship a cheap, worn out feel.
His boots clanked along the open grates as he passed into the next major compartment: the cargo bay. It was huge, floor sinking down to make the overall space almost three stories tall, with immense cargo doors along the port side and smaller hatches on the starboard side. Gantries, cranes, and movable decking areas that rode on rails and vertical guides took up the space. It was actually a quite ingenious design which allowed the cargo bay to be reconfigured quickly. Loren scanned the contents as he walked past, seeing the bagged pirate bodies lined up by a crew hatch. Loren and Captain Elco had briefly talked about a burial at space, but time was of the essence. When he and Velk abandoned the frigate where they were going, the harbor master would receive an anonymous tip about the ship and her crew. Just another load of pirates safely removed from business.
The engineering spaces were just as dirty and noisy as the bridge, probably more so. Loren felt the subsonic thrumming of the hyperspace drives trying to form a field. That thrumming shouldn't be happening; it was the sign of a field starting to form but failing to stabilize, then crashing and starting all over again; he hoped it wasn't causing any cellular damage or scrambling any of the neural impulses going on in his own body. He'd received a crash course in electromagnetics and how they related to hyperdrive fields once, and there were many potential side effects that would ruin a person's day/week/life. The lecturer giving the briefing had talked about DNA damage and how people hoping to reproduce should make sure their engines are in tip top shape lest they have funny looking kids.
With that in mind, Loren quickly raced to the console and scrammed the hyperdrive engines. Considering all the noise and commotion going on, that act was accompanied by almost no fanfare. The thrumming stopped, at least, along with a whooshing sound of the fuel lines being purged. He started the reboot sequence, a process that could only be done one way and was fairly easy to figure out after studying the controls. A ship like this wasn't designed to be run by experts with years of training such as on a military vessel or larger ship; the layout was standardized for the common life form.
After a few minutes, things were running smoothly and Loren returned to the bridge, clanking down the gantry the whole way.
"Everything good up here?" Loren asked of Velk, who was now seated at the navigation console.
"Yes. I have restarted the system and was about to engage the hyperdrive again."
Loren just extended his arm, palm up, to Velk in a gesture meant to tell the Priman to go ahead.
Velk tapped the 'confirm' button, and they were off again.
The second day passed faster than the first. Loren and Velk talked a bit about the plan once they landed and who they'd contact first.
When it was time to call it a night, Loren took first watch. While they'd searched the ship and weren't expecting company, they'd both agreed that the rust bucket they were tooling around in probably needed constant supervision.
Among the supplies they'd brought were sleeping mats, and Velk had stretched his out in the forward portion of the bridge where it was darkest.
Loren occupied himself first with field stripping and cleaning his SSK, then running an inventory of the items they'd take with them when they got to the surface. After that, he spent some time playing with the ship's sensors and then trying to crack its various encrypted files.
Two hours into the watch, Loren noticed the systems panel changing status. The atmospheric p
ressure was dropping slowly, which would eventually result in hypoxia and death if unchecked. Problem was, there were no detected hull or bleed air problems that the computer could detect.
Loren suddenly realized what was going on. He stood up quickly, chair tipping over with a crash, as he almost hit his head on an overhead light ballast.
"Velk!" he said forcefully but quietly.
Loren turned to the rear hatch to go secure it when he heard the telltale priming charge of a blaster from the starboard side of the bridge. His SSK was on the console just out of reach.
"Don't even look at that thing," came a voice from the darkness, "or I'll shoot you down and just ask the other guy what's going on here."
A man took a few careful steps forward and Loren instantly knew it was the captain. They'd checked the whole crew over, but none had talked during their transfer to Avenger's brig and everyone had assumed the captain was simply among them but didn't want to admit it. Apparently, the captain has been on his ship the whole time.
"You must have some well shielded stash compartments," Loren said with a measure of respect.
"I don't care what you have to say; let's just get that out of the way right now. I'm taking my ship back. You and your friend over there are going to our prisoner cells."
"Can I ask your name?" Loren said.
"Captain Ares," the pirate replied. "Don't forget it."
"I guarantee that."
"Now, where's your friend?" Captain Ares shot a glance at the forward part of the bridge, but couldn't see into the dark. He took another step forward and reached up to a panel bolted haphazardly to the compartment's ceiling. He flipped a couple old fashioned toggle switches and the bridge lit up with yellow emergency lights. Though it was a bit of a strain on the eyes, there were no more places to hide.
