by Mike Smith
Almost immediately Gunny could feel the excruciating pain spreading from his abdomen region, along his veins, like fire spreading across dry kindling. With alarms blaring in his encompassing suit of armour and realising that he was only seconds away from blacking out, Gunny took the only option left to him. With the powerful actuators that were built into the suit Gunny picked the soldier up like one might lift a small child and with a massive heave threw the stunned soldier back down the intersection. Moments later a blinding light and massive explosion threw the Marine back against the wall and he finally blacked out…
Sometime later Gunny slowly came back to consciousness; the first thing that hit him was the pain of a massive headache, caused when he had hit his head due to the force of the explosion. The burning in his abdomen where the pulse pistol had hit quickly followed.
“Hey Gunny, you OK?” The voice came from above him and, finally managing to focus, he recognised the face of Jonas, one of his fellow Marines peering down at him with a concerned expression on his face.
“Have we secured the shuttle yet?” Reynolds demanded with a hiss of pain as he breathed in.
“Not yet Gunny, we are just about to assault it now. You did a real number on that Syndicate squad with that grenade. Well it’s their own fault, what ass waves around an armed grenade!” Jonas snorted in professional incredulity. “You need some help?” He asked, noticing the chief still on the ground and obviously in some pain.
“I want that shuttle so we can get off this piece of shit! So get moving, Marine! I’ll bring up the rear to cover the retreat,” Gunny insisted stifling another groan. Jonas just grinned at Gunny before ordering the other Marines.
“Let’s move out Marines!” He called, “we have a shuttle to secure!” Biting back another groan and trying to keep his movement slow to avoid slipping back into unconsciousness, Gunny slowly pulled himself to his feet. Reaching down he picked-up his rifle from the floor and slung it across his shoulder; no veteran Marine would ever abandon his weapon. Using the corridor to support his weight he slowly followed the other Marines towards the docked shuttle.
Fortunately there was only a token amount of resistance left to protect the shuttle, as the main body of the Syndicate security forces had already been overpowered, restrained or incapacitated by the Marines. Hence having quickly secured the shuttle bay, the Marines were just waiting for Jon to give them the all clear to depart. It would look damn silly to have come all this way, secure the computer core, and fight though the syndicate reinforcements simply to be blown to bits by a Syndicate fighter while departing the station.
“Gunny, I think you had better come and have a look at this,” one of the marines reported, grim-faced.
Gunny looked up in surprise; anything to turn a Marine’s stomach was not good. The shuttle bay broke out into several storage rooms, where cargo both coming onto the station and departing could be temporarily stored. Leading the sergeant to one of the larger storage rooms, Patrick almost gagged at the sight. Crammed into the room, shoulder-to-shoulder, gaunt faced, half starved to death, were rows upon rows of people. Predominantly women and children, but some men, all wore the expression of one resigned to their fate. Gunny did not need to take a second look to recognise people sold into the misery of slavery.
Conducting a quick head-count Gunny found over fifty people packed into the room. Far too many people to fit into the small assault shuttle, even if the Marines discarded their bulky assault armour. As a soldier Gunny had faced difficult battlefield decisions before and he considered, briefly, leaving them behind to the Syndicate. A quick glance into the eyes of one of the terrified children, cowering behind its mother, quickly dispelled that option. The child was little older than Lieutenant Castle’s daughter, whom he often read bedtime stories to. He would not condemn any child to a life of such purgatory. Additionally, the sergeant did not even want to consider what Jon would say when he reported abandoning so many families to the Syndicate.
“Commander, Reynolds here,” Gunny called Jon who was on the Eternal Light. “We have a problem here. We need a bigger ship…”
*****
Jon listened in growing disbelief to the report that Gunny made regarding their gruesome discovery on the Syndicate station. Cursing the Syndicate, being involved in almost every illegal and underhand deal in the sector, slavery was a new low; even for the Syndicate. Jon swore that he would put an end to this dreadful trade in human misery. However, putting aside his personal feelings Jon focused on the significant tactical problem at hand. With the Eagle One out of communication range in FTL and neither of the ships in their possession possessing the capacity to transfer so many people, they had a significant logistics problem. Waiting for assistance was out of the question, who knows who else had picked up the distress signal; for all Jon knew further reinforcements were already on the way. They needed a new ship – and fast!
Checking the sensors, Jon was relieved to detect that another freighter, already docked at the station, a few bays away from Gunny and his marine team. He had no way to know the status of the freighter as the ship’s sensors reported that all of its systems were powered down.
“Gunny, I am detecting a docked freighter approximately 500 meters from your position, outer docking ring, three bays counter-clockwise. Status unknown as it is currently powered down. Can you fly that thing?
“I can fly it,” was the confident response from Gunny.
“Then double time-it Gunny. I think we can expect further reinforcements, of the unfriendly variety, very shortly. I’ll give you cover.”
“Acknowledged, Reynolds out.”
Taking off his headpiece so that the already frightened people could hear him without the suit’s amplifying speakers he called out. “Everybody listen carefully, my name is Gunnery Sergeant Patrick Reynolds, with the Imperial, ugh…Confederation, damn… we’re the Marines and we are here to rescue you! We have a ship big enough to take us all that’s not far from here. I need you all to keep together and follow me. I repeat we are here to rescue you and take you to safety.” The group of people just stood motionless, just staring at him in disbelief.
“MOVE IT PEOPLE! NOW!” he screamed at the top of his lungs in his best Marine sergeant tone of voice. The terrified people fled out of the room, in the direction of the shuttle bay, escorted by the other Marines that had fallen into formation around the civilians. Patrick momentarily felt bad about shouting at the obviously deeply shocked prisoners, but unless they moved quickly, none of them were going to be making it off the station alive.
Fortunately having incapacitated most of the station security, following their assault on the computer core and then the Syndicate reinforcements, on their way back to the shuttle, the remaining resistance was extremely light. Arriving at the freighter docking port, Gunny was relieved to see the freighter still firmly docked. He had nightmares on the journey of the freighter departing, and the Marines being stranded on the station with the rescued prisoners.
Instead all that awaited them was a small maintenance team, frozen in disbelief at the sight of armoured marines, shepherding dozens of terrified victims into the docking bay.
“Everybody that does not need to be here, out, NOW!” shouted Gunny at the immobilised engineers. After all, there was no point wasting time and resources restraining the engineers when the entire station, hell probably the entire system, knew that they were there. Grabbing one of the engineering crew as they scurried past Gunny lifted the poor man a couple of feet off the ground, with the powerful actuators built into the armour. “What is the status of the freighter?” Gunny demanded of the terrified engineer. Eyes wide with terror he could not, or would not answer. Pointing his assault rifle that was longer than his arm, at the engineer, he repeated. “I won’t ask the question three times, what is the status of the freighter,” Gunny enunciated each syllable individually.
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” the engineer babbled, falling over his own words to answer the question. “We
were just told to secure it and power-it down until its next run.” Gunny tossed the poor tech aside and strode powerfully towards the freighter. The docking port had been sealed and required a passkey to enter; fortunately this was not an armoured airlock, just a standard security door. Hence Gunny’s powered fist punched straight through the door on the first attempt! Actuators straining from the effort, Gunny pulled the door wide open. Looking through the docking port, Gunny was relieved to see both the station airlock and the freighter airlock open. Both being thick and heavily armoured Gunny knew they would have taken considerable effort to open.
“Jonas, inform me when everybody is aboard and strapped in. Seal the exit behind you. I’ll be on the bridge.”
“Sure thing Gunny. You sure you can fly this?”
“They’ve yet to build a ship that I cannot fly, at least in a straight line, Marine.”
“Aye, Aye, Gunny.”
Leaving Jonas to get the civilians on board, Gunny boarded the freighter, and soon found the bridge.
“Let’s see now…” Gunny stated aloud. “We need main-engine start.” Flicking a switch at random, a claxon sounded throughout the bridge. Hurriedly flicking that one off, Gunny tried the one underneath it… Aghhh-ha!
*****
Jon watched as the freighter’s engines powered up and the vessel slowly pulled away from the station.
“Glad to see that you made it Gunny,” Jon called over the ships communication system.
“Yet to find a ship that I could not fly, Commander. Now can I have a heading to the nearest FTL jump point? I just need some time to find where they have hidden the god-damn FTL controls. Why do they keep insist on moving these things around!”
Jon just laughed at the grumbling from the older man. “Heading 64.8 to starboard.”
“We clear yet?”
“Almost Gunny, I still have one more fighter to shake-off then I will follow you out. Stay on that heading until I contact you again.”
Running low on ammunition, Jon had been playing a cat-and-mouse game with the last fighter. Having seen all his fellow ships destroyed, this last fighter was playing it safe, hanging back on the more cumbersome shuttle’s tail and taking the odd pot-shot. Deciding to put an end to this game, now that the freighter was slowly lumbering towards the FTL jump point, as he did with Miranda many months before he slowly started to reduce thrust, ever so slowly reeling the other fighter in closer…
Unfortunately this time the Eternal Light did not have the benefit of any asteroids close by, or missiles, Jon thought disappointedly. Well, the heavily armoured shuttle had already taken a beating; one more hit was not going to matter. With that Jon powered the thrusters to full reverse! From an external viewpoint it seemed like the shuttle stopped dead in space. The trailing fighter caught completely unawares suddenly shot forward, clipping the shuttle with its portside engine. This had the unfortunate side effect of tearing the portside engine off, along with a good portion of the stabiliser, resulting in the fighter going into an uncontrollable spin.
Reversing thrust, once again, the Eternal Light resumed a parallel course with the freighter, and moments later both disappeared into FTL with a brief flash of light.
All that remained behind was a badly damaged station and a dozen floating carcasses - all that remained of the Syndicate reinforcements; buffeted by the solar wind from the distant star.
Chapter Ten
Present Day
Terra Nova, Zeta Aquilae System
Several weeks later the ripples from their raid on the Syndicate station were still being felt throughout the Confederation.
The first order of business on their arrival back at Terra Nova was to see to the health of the rescued prisoners. In a scene of well-organised chaos, families disembarking from the captured freighter were all given a cursory examination by one of the trained medical corps. Those deemed at high risk were immediately moved to the medical bay for a more through medical examination and treatment. Those deemed weak but otherwise healthy were moved to the nearest cargo bay that had been hastily converted into a triage centre.
The moment that all had disembarked from the freighter, Lieutenant Edgar and his intelligence team descended on it like a pack of vultures. Starting with the ships computer, followed by the bridge, cargo hold and engineering, Edgar and his team completed a complete forensic examination.
Having only just docked and powered down the Eternal Light, Jon was bone tired, but wanted to ensure that all was proceeding smoothly before he retired for a well-deserved shower and hot meal. However, that plan had to be put on hold, when moving swiftly through the crowd, Paul and Jason approached the Commander.
“Can we have a word, in private?” Paul inquired, motioning towards one of the free observation lounges. Jon raised one eyebrow inquisitively, wondering why both officers were grinning as if they had just been caught with their hand-in the cookie jar. Jason in particular looked like he was about to start walking on air in a cloud of self-congratulation. Curious to hear what his two senior officers wanted to discuss, Jon nodded his head in agreement, joining them in the lounge and ensuring that the door was firmly closed behind then.
“Lieutenant Edgar approached me a few minutes ago, with a very intriguing proposition. Timing is critical for us to pull this off, hence I wanted you to hear this immediately. Jason?” Paul said.
“Without realising it sir, the Syndicate have just handed us the keys to their own demise,” Jason started off without any preamble. He then went on to describe the most ingenious plan of disinformation since the Allies fooled the Axis into believing the completely wrong location and date for the D-Day landings. It was without a doubt the craftiest plan ever devised in over 800 years of information warfare. It was ingenious. It became simply known as The Plan, or its full name The Plan to Discredit the Syndicate Organisation Resulting in it’s Downfall (THDSORID-1).
Jon was fairly certain that David had somehow been involved in the naming.
The first step was already underway with the medical attention being given to the families; Jason surreptitiously issued some of his officers with portable holo-recorders to record the scenes. Meanwhile the rest of his team, that had been busy disassembling the freighter, frantically reversed direction and started to put everything back; with subtle modifications.
For example, originally the freighter had belonged to some long defunct shipping company, bought at a knock-down price at auction. However a few minor tweaks to the ships registry resulted in it becoming a real freighter, owned by one of the Syndicates, shell, shell, shell companies which was last reported lost somewhere in the Orion nebula. Similarly a few boxes of unused machine parts suddenly became a significant haul of contraband. The aft cargo bay became full with enough weaponry and explosives to start a small war, all with their serial numbers and anything else that could be used to track them removed. Except for the odd missed number here and there, that tied it back to another Syndicate shell company. The ship’s computer meanwhile was packed full of every-piece of intelligence about the Syndicate, their facilities, ships, operations and accounts that Jason and his team had managed to gleam over the past six months. All nicely encrypted so that it would not appear too obvious…
In all, within the space of 24-hours, the nondescript freighter was turned into an intelligence treasure trove that pointed a ‘come-and-get-me’ arrow straight back to the Syndicate. It was simple, straightforward and would have been blatantly obvious as such to the first person that came across the ship.
Then, after the medical team had given a clean-bill of health to all the prisoners, they were all helped back onto the ship, with assurances that they would be returned home. The ship’s navigational computer was wiped of any information about its point of origin. The destination was programmed into the autopilot for Transcendence, a bare 5 minutes in FTL from Terra Nova. Once all systems had been checked, and then checked again, the ship was allowed to depart and stage two of The Plan was put into operation.
Transcendence station had never seen a stampede like it, nor were they ever likely to again, as hundreds of reporters, correspondents, cameramen and news anchors made a beeline for the docking port. A large proportion of the station population followed them, on the assumption that if a few hundred people were making a mad dash off the station, perhaps they knew something that they didn’t and should be followed…just in case.
Hence there was quite a welcome committee at the ready when the freighter dropped out of FTL almost on top of the station, before powering down the engines. Finally station security, with the backing of confederation navy personnel towed the freighter into dock and popped the hatch. Of course, by then it was far too late to cover-up the contents of the freighter as dozens of families, dehydrated, hungry and bewildered stumbled off the ship, into the arms of the waiting media. It only took a few innocent questions to discover that they were recently rescued slaves, which set off an all-out media scrum.
As one news anchor summed it up on the nightly news. “Ships frequently go missing… But how often does a ship, full of recently freed slaves, just appear?” Meanwhile Confederation Navy officers started to debrief the victims and search the ship with a fine tooth comb…
With information scarce about the origins of the ship, rumours became rampant, speculation fever pitch. One enterprising reporter, pretending to be family, managed to conduct a brief interview with one of the prisoners before he was hauled out by station security. During the interview it was claimed that they had been rescued by a group of Marines… Navy switchboards throughout the Confederation lit-up as a million and one people called to confirm if it was true. The Navy refused to confirm ‘unsubstantiated rumours’.
