“Aye aye!” one of the shipmates said as they ran off of the bridge down to the cargo holds to line the cargo with explosives.
“They’ll kill us, captain. This won’t save us,” the pilot protested.
“We’re dead right now. This is the only way I can imagine we have a chance.”
A few moments later and a voice echoed over through the bridge. “Charges are set, Captain. Ready to jettison!”
Constantine pressed the button and yelled, “DO IT NOW!”
Aboard the DASS Washington, Captain Julian Sellers watched the cargo begin to spill from the Intrepid. “Hard to stern,” he instructed calmly. “They’ve likely set them with charges.”
It was a routine for Julian to encounter various smugglers taking advantage of loose ties around the borders of Alliance space. The DASS Washington had only been itself in active service for 3 months as one of the fastest ships in the fleet. Faster than light travel had not been safely achieved yet, but the Washington was an example of just how close humanity has gotten at 0.87 light. At that speed only two other ships in the solar system had a chance of outrunning it, and only one was widely known.
The navigation computer had to be capable of calculating billions of functions in mere milliseconds. The ship could not afford to take many hits even by objects less than one kilogram at that speed. The hull could take incredible damage.
The ship reared to the side as the debris dumped from the Intrepid exploded in a brilliant, soundless flash. The waves of flames spread miraculously uncontrolled by gravity’s pull.
“Do you have their engines locked in yet?” Captain Sellers asked.
“Not yet, we’re almost through the firewall!” an officer replied. He was an information specialist. In ancient times he would have been called a hacker. One of the more devastating ways that the Alliance disabled ships was by hacking into their system and then using their systems against them.
Another minute passed. Sellers waited impatiently. “We’re through!” the technician yelled.
Back on the Intrepid: “Captain! Captain!” his pilot began to yell at Constantine. “We’ve completely lost engine control! We’re adrift!”
“Environmental’s been disabled!” yelled a technician.
“Fuck!” Constantine yelled despondently. He had no more ideas on how to get out of the situation now.
Suddenly, the ship’s reverse thrusters began to fire. The ship slowly came to stop and the Alliance ship circled it. A communication came through as the ship slowed.
“You’re ship is now under control of the DASS Washington as directed by the Democratic Human Systems Alliance. Surrender and lives will be spared.”
On the Washington, Captain Sellers stared at the communications officer. “You gave them false hope in surrendering. There’s no need to tell them anything other than they are under arrest,” he criticized. Turning to the side, “Sergeant,” he said to a large slender man standing in the back of the bridge holding a small assault rifle. “The captain of that ship is the only person we want. Kill the rest of the crew and take control of the ship.”
“Aye aye!” the sergeant saluted as he left the bridge.
“This’ll be one less privateer to worry about.”
In route to Oberon (moon of Uranus)
ISS Regalia – 31 August 2274
Haden watched the sensors. Whatever stealth system that the Yorktown was using was not entirely foolproof: there were still echoes of radiation that kept appearing in the sensors. It wasn’t enough to alert the average vessel, but Haden knew that it had to be the Yorktown from the memory of his initial encounter.
“Are they still following us?” Trike asked. Haden nodded. “They have to know that this is the same ship from the first salvage.”
“That may be so. It might just be that we taunted them.”
Uranus 13 was still about 14 hours from their current position at full speed. They had already been travelling for nearly a full day. Haden was still formulating exactly how he was going to get on board the Yorktown and locate where they moved Adrianna to. There were multiple debriefing colonies that he was aware of, but where he went from there was the question that hounded him. From the ship’s onboard systems, he should be able to access Alliance networks and uncover the trail.
His biggest concern was that they would have killed her; however, that also made no sense by his reckoning. Would they reassign her to another ship? Would they place her back on the Yorktown? Would they have tolerated her for the actions she took in killing her commander? Would they put her in a labor camp?
Haden also had another thing to worry about. It was sitting in the back of his mind. He needed jobs to earn money to keep his crew. Though they were aware of his primary goals, they wouldn’t allow him to continue chasing down Adrianna without some form of compensation.
Haden left the bridge. As he stepped out he instructed, “keep an eye out for that signal and let me know if they choose to reveal themselves.”
Trike saluted jokingly. “Aye aye, Captain!”
The halls of the ship were eerily quiet save the hum of the ship’s systems. There was no chatter. Being a vessel built able to hold 17 people and to have only a crew of half that meant that much of the ship was empty. Trike and Martin spent most of their time on the bridge. Harriet, Hale, and Ned all kept to either one of the two holds. Darren and Olaph were each going back and forth from engineering to the hold with Haden’s old ship taking turns dismantling it and then inventorying the parts.
“What are you after?” Darren asked as he noticed Haden entering the hold. Darren was busy pulling out the carbon scrubbers from the environmental controls. It had taken him quite a lot of effort to get through the various systems as Haden’s ship smartly kept the environmental controls deep in the ship. The scrubbers were designed to separate the carbon from the oxygen molecules to maintain a breathable level of oxygen in the air.
“I wanted to get my stuff finally out of the ship and also see if I can use the sensor array to boost our eyes and ears.”
Darren nodded in agreement. “That ship still following us?”
“Of course. I know my ship caught them, but not until after they had me. I’ll need to take what I had on my ship in hopes to boost the Regalia’s sensors even more.”
Darren paused his work, and then he turned to face Haden. “There’s a lot on this ship that’s outdated. And I thought that your ship would be worse off, but you had a lot of sophistication.” He knocked a wrench against the hull. “For what survived the crash anyway.”
“I guess I had better contacts,” Haden joked. Each of the men knew the difficulty any privateer faced in getting decent equipment.
Haden climbed the ladder to the cockpit. As he took the first few steps, he paused and wondered why the Alliance operatives ignored his ship in the first place. Perhaps they simply figured the pilot dead and therefor the ship was incidental. He thought back to the operative he killed back on Rhea. His name had been Unlio. They were careless. Even the decision to leave the Regalia to be picked apart by scavengers rather than scuttle the vessel was an error in their judgment. Unlio was an idiot though.
Ignoring his thoughts, he climbed the remainder of the way and punched in a code unlocking entry into his ship. He had left explicit orders to leave the living space alone until he was ready, but he couldn’t be too sure.
Once in he ducked back to a small set of rooms. It was only large enough for one individual to live comfortably. Cargo space was the only true concern for his ship’s original design.
Off in the corner, there were 3 metal crates clearly marked as “food.” He picked them up and moved them up to the entrance. Originally it was his personal store. He felt better dividing it amongst the crew.
“Watch out,” he yelled. “Throwing some crates down!”
The crates fell with successive thuds.
“You holding out on us?” Darren joked as he examined the contents.
“I was starting to feel
guilty about it,” Haden retorted before ducking back in.
Behind the now absent crates there was a panel that he fought to remove. Within a small space behind the panel was a rack of weapons. Mostly there were blades of various makes and purposes. Haden started to remove them from the rack setting them on the ground neatly in front of him. Eventually, he came to a small sword which he laid next to the other blades.
Removing his shirt, he then pulled out a vest from drawer under the rack. On the back was a sheath that held the sword. The sheath was nearly the full length of his back and was slit on the edge midway down for easy removal over his shoulder. He slid the sword in. He then sheathed the remaining blades on the vest and other places on his body using spare straps before placing his shirt back on.
Another object he pulled out was one that strapped around his wrist. On the device, there were small and thin darts that spun almost freely. On the bottom portion under his wrist was the ejector. He began to load a collection of the darts into individual slots.
When he finished, he decided to test it out after. Lifting his hand slightly while aiming, he activated it shooting three successive darts, each penetrating halfway through the hardened metal surrounding him. The cartridge holding the darts spun smoothly as they fired.
Satisfied in the functionality of the weapon, he didn’t bother to remove the darts from the wall but rather placed another set of darts in the empty slots, and then he placed the rest in a small sack he had stored in another drawer.
On the other arm he strapped another small device which attached with a small wire that led up to an innocuous spec on his palm. It was called a paralyzer. Once activated, Haden would be able grab onto any individual that he was fighting paralyzing them so long as he was touching them. There was no shock associated with it; the victim would feel no pain. Haden had often used it to gain advantages in combat or to briefly eliminate threats. Even though it was brief, the feelings would often appear to linger as the victim was confused at the occurrence. No other device of its kind existed.
The weapons had been unused since he left the Alliance. He managed to remain peaceful up to his reuniting with Adrianna except for occasional times he was forced to engage threats in his ship.
He had been adamant about leaving behind that lifestyle, though seemingly he could never find enough reason to dispose of his arsenal.
Once he completed securing the weapons, he then removed a panel for another hidden compartment to the side. As he pressed his hand against a glass-like panel, and a series of circles began to close in on key points of his hand. Then Haden felt some warmth as the panel scanned his DNA profile. A secondary scanning laser then emitted from above to scan his face. When it was satisfied that Haden was who he was claiming, it allowed access.
Within the compartment was a stash of money and precious metal chips. None of it was his. The last job that he was on prior to the collision was transporting a large sum of stolen, unregulated cash and precious metals to a buyer on Uranus 13.
He was already late. Not completing the assignment now would certainly land a bounty on his head. Having a bounty would make running a ship even more risky.
His other cargo was his own stores from various salvages that he had been trying to sell on the open market. None of it would bring him the trouble outside of the Alliance finding it.
He tucked the money into another satchel, and then he continued to scan over various tools and gadgets. Each had their use, and he was sure he would need them all at some point. Some were scanners, some were medical devices. There were frequency lenses, which corrected his vision to see spectrums beyond typical light waves or even infrared. Others were special devices of his design to scuttle ships after downloading and wiping sensitive data from their computer systems.
Once he was satisfied securing all that he felt he needed, he placed the sacks near the exit to the cockpit. He looked over the living space for anything else of value. Aside from clothes, nothing remained of importance. He threw the clothes into the bags to help further conceal their contents.
As he climbed down from his ship, he left the door opened. “You guys can have the rest of it now,” he informed Darren as Olaph had joined him dismantling the last of the carbon scrubbers from the environmental system.
“No problem, Captain.” Darren replied.
Right when Haden was nearly out of the hold, he heard Olaph ask, “do you mind if I ask you a question, Captain?”
Turning back slightly he replied, “sure. Make it a quick one.”
“Where was your cargo? Weren’t you moving something when you crashed?”
“It’s already been pilfered after the crash. Nothing I had had any value,” he lied as he turned away and left.
Undisclosed Alliance Facility
“Stand down, Commander Feyet,” a voice echoed from the station intercom. Adrianna paused, her eyes still fixated on the operative that laid before her.
The operative appeared to be catching his breath, holding up his hand in submission. “That will work,” he choked. “You’re tougher than we even thought.”
“This is a sick way to initiate someone,” Adrianna hissed, pistol still untrustingly trained on the man before her.
“We need to be sure that field operatives can handle even the most unexpected situations.”
“So I take it that I passed?” Adrianna asked sarcastically. “Or will this bullet determine my grade?”
The man stood up directly in front of the pistol. “You’re still alive, so yes, you pass.” His tone was arrogant and defensive. He put his hand up and held it open expecting Adrianna to give up the weapon.
As she lowered it, she placed it into the strap of her pants. “I’ll hold onto it myself,” she said.
Accepting it with a nod, the operative lowered his hand to shake her hand instead. “My name is Thomas Yale, otherwise known as operative 4789Φ.”
“Commander Adrianna Feyet,” she said cautiously accepting the courtesy. “So why was I chosen for this position anyway?”
“To find and kill Haden Rachid.”
ARDME Command
“How are plans going to modify the Yorktown’s purpose in all of the records?” General Dimmings asked Gabriel Fortner. Gabriel was looking over reports being tendered from the Yorktown’s reassignment. It was heading off to Neptune and would be re-commissioned there under a new sign.
Gabriel wondered why there was a need for such a high level of effort being put into changing the Yorktown. They could in effect make up a story, distribute the story, and then create records that would have the same effect as with what they were doing.
Dimmings however insisted that since there was news that had originally gone out acknowledging the existence of the Yorktown, it was an ideal ship to use to their ends.
“Operative 356Q is accompanying the ship on its way to Neptune for reverse engineering,” Gabriel explained as he put the reports on the desk neatly in front of him. General Dimmings took the seat in front of Fortner and sat down heavily with a loud exhale. Gabriel continued. “Most systems are still fully operational, so it should be easy to deal with.” He watched the general for any reasonable response to the news. Dimmings sat a stared at the young officer awaiting any further information.
“And about the alterations to public information sources? That is what I wanted to know.”
Fortner coughed a little and pushed forward a report. “Alterations have been complete. We now need to find subjects to eradicate as a part of the plan. We could make up citizens, but it might take more financial effort to infiltrate the data stores to that level rather than gathering real people.”
“Are you asking me for approval?”
“No, I am explaining as to why we’ve already rounded up persons who were less than desirable and disposed of them.” Gabriel couldn’t believe the words that were falling out of his mouth. It was the report that he had been looking over: the names of those individuals chosen to have been aboard the Yorktown when it
had been destroyed.
“Good,” Dimmings said with a sly grin. “And here I was beginning to think that President Alexander may have been accurate in second guessing your appointment.”
Gabriel looked at General Dimmings trying not to show any emotion. He was learning quickly the need to remain as stoic as possible in the face of his superiors, as few as there may be at this point. That simple advice on how to deal with Admiral Keller worked more to his favor with ever other officer he’s encountered at his level. Additionally, at his extraordinary young age, it made it difficult to be taken seriously unless he could remove his emotions entirely.
But the problem was deeper.
Gabriel knew that he deliberately falsified the records to show living individuals being chosen for the Yorktown. There was an odd feature of his interactions with Israel Dimmings that led him to conclude that fictionalized citizens wouldn’t pass the muster to make the Yorktown’s ascension into martyrdom believable.
The entire story of each person was entirely plausible in the complete uninteresting nature they possessed. No one would really spend too much time fascinated by any of them. It was the magnitude and style of the slaughter that would make it gripping. It would be in that each person was choosing to better themselves and the Alliance through the colonization program where the independents simply balked at the request for peace.
Dimmings himself would not know the difference provided the results were the same.
“Within days we will be able to launch the initial news wires on the incident,” Fortner explained.
“Excellent,” Dimmings said, pulling a flask from the breast pocket of his suit. With a few loud gulps, it had sounded as though he had emptied the container.
Gabriel disliked this about his superior. The stinging bite of the few swallows of liquor he was forced to take still hung in his mind. To Gabriel, this behavior made people sloppy. As calculated and brilliant a politician as Dimmings was, he was sloppy. Gabriel preferred precision.
Awakening of a Predator (Gravity Book 2) Page 4
