“The express freighter is the source,” the sensors operator reported as his captain stepped up behind him.
The ship rocked again and alarms started sounding as the computer’s automated warning system kicked in. There was a hull breech on the bridge and air was venting from the room. A Karduan voice came on over the loud speaker announcing that fact but none of the pirates spoke Karduan.
Alexander pushed the sensors operator out of his seat.
“Helm, hard about and get us the fuck out of here, full speed!” he yelled as he looked down at the panel.
The panel had to be lying, he thought as he gazed down at it. According to the Blue ship’s sensors the express freighter now had more than a dozen turrets and was coming at them at a high rate of speed. It was even faster than what they monitored them at earlier when the Dori had moved to help the Henderson. A moment later he stared on in shock as the freighter launched twelve small fighters. The fighters moved on the Henderson insuring it couldn’t flee on pain of death. An armored shuttle was also launched and was heading to the helpless agro hauler.
“All turrets, open fire on that express freighter!” he shouted as he felt another explosion against the hull of his ship.
“Captain, they are staying out of range of our guns,” his man working the navigation console reported.
“They’re now hitting us with missiles!” someone cried as the ship rocked from another impact.
His men were starting to panic. They weren’t the best men to begin with and they were use to fighting easy prey. The air was getting thin on the bridge and many of his men were leaving their stations to put on their space suits, which they had neglected to wear.
“Damage report!”
“Three turrets are down and we have several hull breeches,” came the reply.
Peter Alexander ran over the helm station that was now vacant and took over. He had to get to the gravity well and make a bend before his ship was disabled and captured.
“Captain, the enemy commander is signaling for us to surrender and prepare to be boarded,” his communication operator.
“Like Hell!” he swore trying to stay ahead of them and make it to the ice giant’s gravity well.
Several heavy hits rocked the Anarchy as warning lights came on. Looking over his controls it became immediately apparent that their maneuver drives were damaged. He still had thrusters and a lead he thought while vainly hoping that inertia could get him to the gravity well in time.
“They are again calling for our surrender or the next barrage will be into the bridge,” comm. reported.
Just as Alexander was giving up hope, a ship emerged from the same gravity well that he was desperately trying to reach.
It was a Karduan Vanguard sloop and it was the answer to his prayers that is if he prayed or even cared about such things.
“Call them!” Alexander yelled to his comm.
“Karduan Vanguard, this is the Anarchy working for Station Mistress Bie-Tor of the Sargasso System, we request your assistance,” they broadcasted.
“I think you are mistaken pirate, we are with the express freighter,” the very human voice of Commander Alfred Hutton replied as the Cody fired a warning shot from its forward fusion array.
Mike was very happy to see the Cody. The Vanguard showed up at just the right moment to block the pirate’s escape. A few minutes later, the ISS Star Wolf and the ISS New Orleans bended into the system behind the sloop. The old frigate was very close to the attack cruiser and was probably being towed inside of her bender field so they could make longer bends than the old girl was capable of.
“Open a channel to the Star Wolf,” he ordered as his crew cheered at the sight of their task force.
“Open sir,” Jansen said.
“Captain Hope, it is good to see you, sir,” Collins said with a big smile. “How’d your ever find us?”
The elder captain grinned a little before he answered.
“Mr. Daily found you with a little of his computer magic,” he said nodding over to the navigation station.
“That’s not true Mike,” Martin interjected, “Captain Hope was the one who figured out that you had a bender malfunction and asked me to determine where you could have gotten to on just one drive.”
“You called it dead on sir but we found a crashed transport ship, salvaged some parts and have repaired our drives,” Mike informed.
“Well done,” Hope said and then inquired. “What about this DE and the other freighter?”
“Sorry sir, I almost forgot. That’s the pirate ship Anarchy and I think they were about to surrender to us,” Collins informed opening another channel.
“Anarchy, this is Lt. Michael Collins of the Imperial Q-Ship Randori,” he started, “This is your last chance to surrender your ship or we will be forced to finish you off. You have ten seconds to reply.”
Across the space between them the pirate captain sat in silence as he contemplated his next move. He wanted to tell them to go fuck themselves but he knew that he was the one who was fucked.
“All right damn it! I surrender!” he said in anger.
“We acknowledge your surrender, standby to be boarded. If there are any tricks you and your ship will be destroyed.”
Mike quickly switched back to the command channel.
“Sir, the Anarchy has surrendered, could you send over a boarding party and a prize crew?” the Q-ship captain requested. “Perhaps Commander Richards would like to take the lead?” he suggested knowing that the commander had several old scores to settle with these pirates.
“Sure, after all this is what I get for leaving you alone for few days, two captured ships and a brig full of pirates,” the old headmaster said with a rare laugh.
“It’s your fault sir, after all you taught me,” Mike replied with broad smile of his own.
A day later found the Anarchy’s hull and maneuver drives repaired with a little help from the Spider and a dozen repair droids. They were able to repair one of the damaged turrets but the others were too totaled to be salvage. They still had some spare turrets in storage but they didn’t want to waste them on the pirate ship, nor did they have the time to install them. Hope wanted to get out of the area as fast as possible and to push on for the old border. They still needed to lead the enemy ships away and to do that they needed to be seen further along the bend cylinder.
Captain Hope made the decision to take the destroyer escort, as it was able to keep up with their bends. The Henderson was another story as the freighter was just too old with a very slow maneuver drive and a short bend cycle. It was suggested to crash it into a planet or into the ice giant.
Lt. Stanton requested that it be used to retrieve the rest of his tanks but that idea was quietly shot down as it was again pointed out that the freighter just couldn’t keep up with the task force and that it had to be left behind.
Mike recommended that it be placed in geo-stationary orbit over Carter’s World’s western pole. The barren star system was barely ever visited, once inside the pole’s magnetic field and powered down to just a minimum power output it would be very hard for anyone to find her. The old ship was full of frozen food stores and maybe they could be retrieve her on their way back to the Wolf’s Den.
In the end they did just that and left the old freighter in orbit around the rocky world.
The task force then opened a bend and left the system, both happy to have found their lost ship and to be on their way before any unwanted company might arrive.
Two rapid bends took them in and out of systems with no more than a few minutes of lag time at each jump. Scans were performed but no enemy or friendly ship had been detected. The Trident Task Force then bended into another system where an Earth colony was located. It was another member world of the Delian League that had joined and cooperated with the Karduan invasion force. The squadron stayed just long enough to let the planet’s system cutters spot them and order them to leave. Once more they left and worked their way further towa
rds the end of human colonized space.
More rapid touch and go bends found them needing to refuel as they entered the next system.
The world was called Almiah Aljamila which in Arabic meant Beautiful Water or at least that’s what the ship’s computer said the translation meant. It was a M Class world with a mass slightly larger than that of Earth. It was located in the Goldilocks Zone of the system, which meant it was right where you needed it to be to support life. During the planet’s creation it had drawn all of its water from its surrounding icy moons leaving them dry and barren.
It was a water world with only a few high peaked islands that had probably once been mountain tops. Turbulent tide winds wracked parts of the planet while along its equator the seas were calm and warm. It was in this temperate belt that the settlers had come to start a world as far from the rest of humanity as possible.
They were a desert people but like many desert people they had a vast experience at living on their own and of dreams of endless water. Started as an Ameri-Corp colony, they had created an ocean side community nestled on the side of a mountainous island. For income they had transformed themselves with a little help from Ameri-Corp from a desert people into a fishing industry. It was a long term investment for the Ameri-Corp to stock an alien ocean and to make it teaming with Earth’s edible fish.
For the people who lived there it granted them a combination of the privacy they sought and a world they always wanted. They had even carved out of the side of the mountain peak a tower to call to mosque.
The Star Wolf entered the system and led the way heading towards the sun’s gravity well. All of their ships were collecting fuel with their ram scoops while waiting in anticipation for some kind of fight.
The people of Beautiful Water had remained silent, if they had any ships or shuttles they were not in space. They believed in religious and cultural freedom for themselves. They also were pretty much xenophobic as well as paranoid of anyone else unless you were from the Ameri-Corp Company.
“Hail the colony again?” Captain Hope ordered sensing that something must be wrong. Most places like this would at least tell them to get lost and not to return.
“Sir, all I’m getting is static,” said the comm. officer.
Commander Richards moved over to the station.
“Static as if someone is jamming us?” he asked looking for a clue if there were any enemy ships waiting to ambush them.
“No sir, more like their sending unit was left powered up and was placed on send but there is no message,”
Hope grumbled as he looked down at his coffee mug.
It took another hour to reach the planet and all the while there was still no response to their hails.
“Options?” the old captain asked.
It wasn’t because he didn’t know what to do but sometimes people have out of the box ideas and solutions. It also gave him insight to the way his men thought as well as training them to think.
“We could move into geo stationary orbit and use our sensors to try and monitor the situation on the ground,” Richards offered.
The Hawk’s head nodded as he thought it over.
“We could launch a drone satellite into orbit,” Martin offered from the computer station.
“Mr. Dover, what do you think?” he asked of his helmsman and second officer.
“Boots on the ground,” the Englishman announced as he turned in his seat. “We could send down a landing party in one of the armored shuttles to see what’s going on.
“We could also do a combination,” Commander Richards added. “Send down a fighter patrol and let’s gets eyes on the situation before we send in people. That way we can also react if the situation calls for it.”
Again the Hawk’s head nodded as he pondered their next step. The smart thing would to be to just keep going and stay ahead of the pursuing enemy squadrons.
“This could be a trap but this is also very odd and after all I do love a good mystery,” he said his eyes narrowing as he slightly grinned once more making him resemble the predator like eyes of his namesake.
Everyone on the bridge waited as the old hero decided.
“Bring us into a high orbit,” he ordered to the hem and then turned to his first officer. “Have a fighter patrol readied and prepare a landing party.”
“Sir, might I suggest using the Randori’s armored shuttle Shaker instead of our armor personnel carrier, the Carronade. It is faster, better armed and would do well in high winds and water if the weather patterns shift,” Martin Daily suggested from navigation and computer station.
Richards nodded, “Very well, send word to Mr. Collins to prepare a landing party and I want two of our Sabers to escort them.
Ten minutes later they were in high orbit and the F-86 fighters had already been launched from the attack cruiser.
Collins had ordered the Shaker to be launch ten minutes later.
Lt. Ken Usheiba smiled as he tilted his extended atmosphere wings in a sort of wave at the armored shuttle. He had been promoted as the Star Wolf’s fighter wing commander when Commander Hutton had been given the command of the Cody.
“What took you so long Shaker?” he called over in jest.
“Funny, how’d you launch so fast?” Lt. Cappillo demanded of his friend from the controls of the armored shuttle.
“We were already sitting in our cockpits and were doing virtually reality training,” he said as the two fighters moved to either side of the shuttle.
“I think that’s cheating,” Cappillo said with a laugh.
Entering the atmosphere, they found the weather on Almiah Aljamila a bit stormy but as they closed in on the settlement it quickly became a nice sunny day.
“Wolf Pup Leader, ship’s sensors are not reading any other aircraft, ships or any movement on the surface,” Ben Lewis reported from the Wolf’s comm. station.
The fighters took the lead moving ahead of the shuttle and buzzed past the colony. Another report from the Star Wolf indicated that all was quiet and no automated defense systems had turned on.
On the Wolf, Captain Hope looked up at his main viewer as numerous pictures from both his ship and the fighters’ sensors came in.
The town look dead, no movement, no individual heat signatures and in some of them they could see bodies laying in the town’s central plaza.
“Send in the shuttle and advise them to be cautious,” the Hawk ordered.
Lt. Cappillo brought the shuttle down nice and easy, bringing it into VTOL mode. VTOL stood for vertical take off and landing. This way he could come in and hover over the landing site and then lower his ship to a perfect landing on the shuttle pad. The town was called Jamil another word for beautiful and it was. It was built on poly steel struts embedded into the ocean’s floor. The platform was anchored into the mountain’s side and the settlement had grown over the year to encompass both the bio sphere and the limited space of the rocky island. Around the island coast were numerous floating hatcheries.
Rufo could see from his flight in that some of the hatcheries had been damaged, split in two or outright sunk. The biosphere was cracked and holed in several places. Setting the armored shuttle down he left behind a crewman to man the fusion turret and the copilot as he went into the rear of the shuttle to take charge of the landing party.
Lt. Stanton and Gunny Masters were waiting for him. The young marine officer had volunteered some of his men to come on this mission. Lt. Cappillo pointed out that they were armor personnel and that the Werewolves were better trained for this sort of thing.
Stanton let out a huff and said in a proud voice, “All marines are infantrymen first!”
Rufo nodded and allowed him to pick six of his men.
Gunny brought six of their Werewolves to round out the landing party.
Opening the rear hatch, they quickly exited the shuttle and fanned out into two V formations.
“Gunny, take your squad and check out the homes and buildings nearby. I’ll take Lt. Stanton’s sq
uad and head for the settlement’s operations center,” Cappillo ordered.
As they moved across the town plaza they could see that the place looked like a war zone. Buildings were pockmarked with gauss and bullet holes, walls were scorched from explosions and metal doors had bent or blown open by energy weapons.
The bodies of mostly men and some women were littered about the plaza. Almost all of them had an old style firearm laying somewhere nearby. The weapons were old hunting rifles, revolvers and a few bodies even had tools still grasped in their hands. One thing was sure was that the people of Beautiful Water went down fighting.
Cappillo wanted to say check the bodies for wounded but the bodies had been laying here for some time and were already well into the last stages of decomposition.
“Any signs of survivors?” he asked while working his hand scanner looking for any life sign readings.
“Sir, everyone has been dead for a long time,” Gunny Masters reported as his team went from building to building looking for any clues.
Reaching the town operations center they went through the hole in the wall that had once been the doorway. Inside they found more remains of the settlement’s people. It looked like they put up a last stand here as there were a dozen or so bodies laying about in defensive positions.
As the second squad moved closer to the center a shot rang out and the landing party scattered. Several more shots were fired and two of the marines instinctively returned fire before anyone could stop them.
Now an electromagnetic gauss assault rifle fired poly-steel needles without recoil or kick back. It fires so fast that in the wrong hands its hundred round magazine well could be emptied in just a few burst.
The two marines let loose with full and sustained bursts tearing through the second floor window and the surrounding walls where the shots had come from.
Lt. Stanton was yelling across the team link for them to stop firing but it was already too late.
Entering the building they ran up the stairs and found the body of their sniper. It was a young man no older than fifteen years old. He had an old semi automatic AR15 rifle by his outstretched hand, a hand that was covered in his own blood. His body had been hit at least a dozen times from the gauss needles rounds and was pretty much ripped apart. It was clear that the boy had probably been the sole surviving member of this community. Left alone he was most likely scared out of his mind and half mad for revenge.
Wolf's Run: The Chase of War (Star Wolf Sqaudron Book 2) Page 19
