by Greg Dragon
Cilas had never liked the man, not since graduating from the academy. Viles was the son of rich settlers that had property on Traxis, and Cilas believed that he bought his commission. Outside of talent like Helga Ate, Adan Cruser, and Kyden Ahmad, the space power of the Rendron was the weakest in the Alliance.
The infiltrator wings were developed because of this weakness, housing an elite group of pilots, each independent of Viles’ blundering. The Marines were exemplary only because their commander wasn’t Viles, but it was one of those things that only officers at his level had noticed.
Now that he thought about it, Cilas began to wonder. If Viles had somehow forgotten to send them help—he closed his eyes and bit his fist. “Thype me,” he whispered. “Thyping Viles.”
He didn’t have a personal grudge against the man, and had only ever done what he was ordered to do. If Viles meant to keep them out here alone, it would have little to do with how he felt about them. So it made no sense to speculate on his actions. The CAG would have sent the message up to Retzo Sho.
Would the captain leave them stranded? Brise Sol seemed to think that he would. But Cilas had broken bread with his leader on many occasions. Sho was beyond proud of the work that they did. This meant that the message had to have been intercepted or lost.
“I need to send another SOS,” he said, looking around at the equipment. “Can’t do it from here, though; there’s no FTL communication.”
He sighed and ran his hand through his thick crop of black hair, annoyed at how much it had grown. He liked to keep it high and tight, but now it just looked like a mess. There were no shears on the ship, and nothing remotely close to a pair of scissors.
Weapons, he thought suddenly, remembering the predicament that they were in. If they got boarded by whomever was tracking them, they would need something with which to fight.
The auto rifles and starguns they had brought with them to Dyn were still in that crater along with the bodies of his men. Maybe I should have listened to Ate, he thought, regretting their situation. We would be down on the surface, with shelter, weapons, and supplies. Plus we’d have Cage and the guys to take back to the Rendron for a burial.
He marveled at how smart the young recruit had been, and he chided himself for being so trusting of Amatu. Maybe it isn’t too late, he thought. We could probably still make it down to the surface. But they had no armor, and the ship had no weapons. One direct hit and they would disintegrate.
I need to get us repositioned, he thought. The feeling of helplessness had run its course. Weapons, what can we do about weapons? With the Geralos parked above Dyn, going back to the moon was impossible. The Louines had only given them clothes, and not even the ship had a cannon to defend itself with.
He looked down at his hands. They were calloused and strong, despite the malnourished period he’d spent with the Geralos. On board the Rendron, they had all been trained for combat in any situation. If a time were to come when he needed his fists, he was beyond confident that he would be fine. But against projectile weapons and Geralos swords, those fists were as useful as fighting fire with paper.
He needed a plan, and he needed it fast, so he strapped himself in to concentrate.
It took an entire week of focused work for Brise to complete the decoy buoy. Cilas expected him to build something reminiscent of a tiny ship, but what he produced was crude and ugly.
It was boxy and lacked any specific shape, but regardless of what he and Helga thought, the engineer was proud of his creation. He assured them that it would do the job, and that the thrown together aesthetic was part of it.
“The trick is to fool their radar that old Deborah here has a lot more mass than she does,” he said.
“Deborah?” Cilas said, unable to get past the fact that he had named it.
“Yeah, I had to give her a name. Deborah Score, the human boomer, who gave her life to liberate Casan. The idea was mine, but the name came from Ate. Says Deborah’s face is on the coins in the capital of her mother’s old country. Thought it would be an honor to name our little ship after her.”
Cilas nodded. “It’s an excellent choice. Continue telling me your plans.”
“When she’s out in the vacuum, the radio inside of her will pulse,” Helga said. “On a radar the blip will look big – just like our ship would, and they will only know the truth when they try to approach. By then, we will be scanning their vessel to know who it is that is coming for us. I will keep us out of range, and with the ship cloaked, there’s a good chance they will ignore us. Once we learn who it is that came after the tracker, I will fly us out farther where we cannot be picked up.”
“Good job, you two,” Cilas said, but he was feeling worried for their fate. Once Helga flew them out further, they would lose Dyn’s gravity. They would drift out into deep space, where no one would be able to find them. That would be the end of their eventful journey, and eventually their lives.
“An adjustment to the plan, Nighthawks,” he said. “We’re running low on everything. Whatever that vessel is that comes for us is bound to have things that we need to get home. If it’s as small as The San was, I say we board it and take it over.”
Brise and Helga exchanged looks as if Cilas had lost his mind, but he kept his composure as they processed it. “That could be suicide,” Brise said.
“I’m well aware of it, Sol. But what are our options, considering the state of this ship? If Ate takes us out of range, we will be adrift and far from the beacon we sent. Our rescue could come and not locate us. Then we’d really be trapped in here forever. At least with attacking them we give ourselves a chance. Their ship could have an FTL communicator, and we could contact the Rendron again. Better yet, it will have an FTL drive, and we could plot a course and go home. What do you say, Nighthawks, does it still sound crazy?”
“It does, but it’s what we were trained to do,” Helga said. “Cloaked I can get us close, and we could use our EVA suits to slip through the shields. With a torch we can crack a bay window, and slip in before the blast doors, shut us out. It will be risky, but it’s possible. I just don’t like that we’re going in blind.”
“What if it’s a warship with hundreds of troops?” Brise said.
“Then we stick with Plan A, and get the heck out of this sector,” Cilas said. “My plan would only be valid if it’s a ship of thirty or less. We are Nighthawks; we can take those odds. But a warship is too much, even for us.”
“Do we have weapons?” Helga said.
“We have blowtorches, knives, and our fists. Once we’re on board we’ll need to make quick decisions, but as a small unit it will be easy. We take one out, and relieve him of his weapons, then a second and a third will give us all the weapons we need. Once we have that, we can lock down compartment after compartment. We move to the bridge and relieve the captain of his command. After the mission is complete, we’ll officially have a ship. We can call in to the Rendron and get ourselves rescued.”
“Sounds like a plan, Lt,” Brise said, surprisingly, but it was good to see the old fire reflected in his eyes.
Once they finished talking things over, he placed the tracker inside of Deborah, then released it into the center of their space where it floated to the bulkhead and stopped.
Helga went over to her station and strapped herself in, then picked up her tablet and began working at something. Brise mumbled something to her, and she grunted in approval. Cilas watched them do this without bothering to ask.
When Deborah began to fly around the compartment, he quickly understood. Brise had built a program for Helga to control the vessel. He had built one for himself, too, so that they both had access, but for now it was Helga that had control of it.
She flew it down into the locker room, and Brise followed behind. On his command, Cilas did his part, with opening and closing the airlocks. When Deborah Score was gone, Helga pinned her tablet to the side of the giant navigation monitor, and flew Deborah away from them, until it was barely visible on th
eir radar.
“Now we just have to wait to see who comes in to collect,” she said. “I’m turning us around, with preparations for a quick exit. This is exciting and scary, I cannot lie, but it feels good to make some sort of progress.”
“I wish I shared your thoughts, Ate, but I’m still shaken up,” Cilas said. “There’s a chance that our Louine friends were not who they claimed to be. All I know is that captivity is not an option for me—not anymore—and whoever comes for that tracker is in for a world of hurt.”
“We’re right there with you, Lieutenant,” Helga said. She looked at Brise, who nodded his head. “I hope that they’re a small team of losers so that we can board them and take their ship. I want to be inside a real cockpit again, with some sort of control over my life.”
“Damn right, Ate. I am right there with you,” Cilas said. “But I just hope it isn’t what I think it is.”
“And what would that be?” Brise said, raising an eyebrow.
“Vestalian pirates,” Cilas said. “The lowest form of life.”
18
Days passed as Helga watched the throbbing blip of the Deborah Score. The gravity of Dyn had already taken it on as one of its own, adding it to the loose debris that orbited the moon.
At first she thought the Geralos would spot it, and either take it inside their ship to investigate or blast it to clear up their radar. But nothing happened as it continued its journey, and she began to wonder if Cilas had been wrong.
The bickering between him and Brise had ceased, and this at least was a positive. They both kept to themselves, prepping for what was to come, and when they weren’t doing that, they were talking to her.
Nobody used the EVA suits while they waited, and Helga appreciated this more than they would ever know. The time it took to reel someone in was over fifteen minutes. If they were discovered and had to go, that delay would be the end of them.
As she made to push herself away from the monitor, she saw a flash of light and a brand new warship appeared. This new ship she recognized, and her lips began to quiver before she could manage to get the words out.
“Ci-Ci-Cilas, I mean, Lieutenant – you are going to want to see this,” she said.
Cilas and Brise floated over from their respective corners to see what had gotten her so excited. Brise reacted first, his laughter sounding as if he bordered on insanity. Cilas, ever the stoic, pumped his fist and patted Helga on her shoulder. “Faith, Ate, I told you to have faith. Now we get to watch that bird make mincemeat of those lizards.”
The warship, Inginus—one of the Rendron’s two deadly infiltrators—loomed before them like a titan: angry, beautiful, and ready to vanquish its enemy. It was already firing on the smaller Geralos ships, tearing one in half and crippling one of the others.
For Helga, it was a thing of beauty watching this warship fight. Where the Rendron was parked in deep space, they remained hidden from the Geralos. Due to this, things stayed quiet, and fights occurred away from the gigantic battleship.
Helga had only experienced an attack once, but she’d been so young that all she remembered were the flashing lights and noise. She had forgotten that the Rendron was built for war, and witnessing one of its smaller ships made her respect its strength.
The Geralos ships were trying to fight back, but the gunners on the Inginus were accurate and deadly. They swapped blasts for a while—with the Geralos feeling the bulk of it—then the Inginus launched a warhead that set the dark space on fire.
“Ate!” Cilas shouted behind her, and gestured towards the larger monitor. A new ship had appeared and was moving to intercept Deborah. With the Inginus distracted with the Geralos, this predator sought to capture its prey right underneath their noses.
Cilas and Brise both came over for a closer look, and the three of them tried to decipher the make and model of this new ship. From what Helga could see, it was a repurposed dropship, large enough to hold up to forty-five spacers. But if the interior was anything like the hull that they witnessed, it would be a wonder if it sustained any life.
“I’m getting chills,” Helga said, watching it as it loomed, surprised that it hadn’t noticed that their decoy was just a toy.
“Lieutenant, do you see that?” Brise said, pointing at the ship.
“Good eyes,” Cilas said, touching the panel and zooming in on a porthole near the rear. It sat apart from the rest, which meant that there was a chance that it was an unused compartment. “That will be our entry point. This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for,” he said. “There are two EVA suits, and I am occupying one of them. As commanding officer and the man with the communication codes, I don’t get a choice in the matter.
“Now, the second EVA suit will need to be either one of you—who gets the honor, I don’t care. But the person who stays will need to be ready for our contact. We’re going to take that ship and evaluate the threat. If we deem it to be hostile, we will eliminate its occupants.”
“What happens to the escape ship?” Helga said, looking at Brise.
“Once we have the controls we will open a channel and then guide whomever into its dock. Once we’re reunited we will hail the Inginus—”
“That’s if it’s still space-worthy after what I’m seeing there,” Brise said. “Those lizards are giving it one hell of a go, but Inginus doesn’t want to back down.”
“It’s an infiltrator, Sol, it’s fought battleships and survived. What you’re seeing is Commander Lang merely playing with his food. The lizards have already lost, trust me. The Inginus lives on lizard meat. Now, the two of you decide, and make it fast. Who stays and who comes with me?”
“Brise is the senior, so I should stay,” Helga said. “Although I want nothing more than to get off this ship. When you get things under control, I will fly her onboard, and then I’ll take a good look at those controls.”
She saw doubt in Brise’s eyes and wondered if he wanted to stay. It made her feel bad for opening her mouth. If the man was scared, he would never admit it to them, and now that she’d volunteered, he was forced to go along. Thype me, she thought, it was as if she could never get anything right.
“Sorry, Sol, I just realized what I did. How about we flip for it? Would you be okay with that?” she said.
“I’m good with whatever, Ate, but we can flip for it, sure,” he said. “Lieutenant, please guess a number between one and thirty. The person who gets the closest will accompany you on the ship.”
“Alright, but make it snappy,” Cilas said. “That floating piece of junk is moving slow, but we don’t know how long before it picks up on our trap. A part of me thinks they have been hailed by Inginus, and are now forced to produce identification stating that they’re friendly. Failure to do so will turn the infiltrator on them, so again I have to remind you two to hurry it the hell up.”
“My number is 21,” said Helga, quickly, citing her favorite number.
“I’ll say 19,” Brise said, and then looked to Cilas for confirmation.
“The number was 30, so you’re it, Ate,” Cilas said. “Sol, are you comfortable flying this thing?”
“I can practically build it, Lieutenant, of course I’m comfortable. I may not be able to have it do tricks, but I can park the damned thing.”
They hustled to the locker room to put on their EVA suits, and Cilas handed Helga a knife. “Don’t let them take you alive,” he said, and when she saw his hard brown eyes, she saw a deep concern reflected there.
It was hard to miss it, and she struggled to understand what it was. Cilas never spoke of his past, but it was obvious that he had an interesting history. People like the lieutenant always came with a special history—perseverance through tragedy, an unqualified parent, or a sibling who needed him to play the role.
Maybe that was it. He had a sister, and Helga reminded him of her somehow. This was what she accepted with the look that he gave her, because she dared not hope that he was attracted to her.
She took the knife and slipped
it under her glove. “I’ll bury it into one of them and then myself if I have to,” she said. They were all on the same page, and it was fully understood. She would gladly face death over captivity.
When they were both fully dressed in their EVA suits, Cilas took the lead and opened up the first of the three airlocks. The comms connected them to Brise, who opened the far doors on command. But when they reached the final airlock, Cilas stopped and turned to face her.
She heard the comms click to private and he grabbed the airlock’s wheel, steadied himself, and then reached out and took her hand. “Helga,” he said suddenly, startling her with the informal way that he addressed her. “What we’re about to do will probably get us killed. I am only having us do this because I believe that we can win. But belief isn’t reality, and the odds are stacked against us. That being said, I just want you to know that I’m glad that I’ll be doing it with you. From BLAST until now you’ve been a real five percenter, and I’m more than proud to call you a Nighthawk.”
“Thanks Cilas, I love you too,” she said, letting her smile shine despite the situation. He reacted the way she expected: confused, but too awkward to call her bluff. It was one of those jokes where she would accept either reaction, but since he merely froze, she laughed it off.
“Always with the jokes,” he said, and then released her hand. He switched over the comms and then commanded Brise to release the final door. When they heard the click, he snapped a tether to her belt, then attached the other end to his. He then looped the rest around his arm and pulled it up and over his shoulder.
In a manner of seconds they were out in the black of space, with nothing but their packs to keep them from floating off. The EVAs had small rockets to help in emergency situations, but using them for flight was never a good idea.
The pull of the numerous ships in the area, along with the gravity from the moon, made it much of a challenge for the tiny packs to handle. But Cilas and Helga had been through BLAST, which had prepared them for this method of boarding a spacecraft. It was all about the shields, and exploiting the magnetic pull, so they angled their trajectory to reach the pirate ship.
