“No,” Podolski answered quickly.
“Vlad, I’m going to need you to open the door to the brig and then I’m going to need you to unlock whatever cells I ask you to,” Jennings said. “Or I will be forced to start shooting apart your vital organs in alphabetical order.”
“Nonsense,” Fix said. “Appendix, gall bladder, heart, kidneys, large intestine, liver, lungs, pancreas, small intestine, stomach, testes. He’d die too quick. Testes, stomach, large intestine, small intestine, kidneys, gall bladder, pancreas, liver, lungs, heart. That’s the way to go.”
“We should trust him,” Jennings said. “He’s a doctor.” He cleared his throat. “Now about the brig?”
“Right,” Podolski said. “My fingerprints and retina will open it.”
“Then do so,” Jennings replied as he released him and stalked around the desk, his pistol trained on Podolski.
The desk sergeant placed his hand on the fingerprint scanner to the right of the door and then his eyes to the retina scanner. The door slid open. Jennings gestured with his pistol for Podolski to enter, and Lafayette did the same with the three prisoners he had taken. The brig was a single long corridor with a half-dozen barred doors on each side. There were a few whispers and some cries of surprise as Jennings and Lafayette forced the guards down the hallway and to the first empty cell.
“Open it,” Jennings ordered Podolski.
The guard removed a laser cut key, slid it into the lock and turned it. The barred door slid open, and Jennings shoved him and the others inside after grabbing the key out of Podolski’s hand. Fix arrived, dragging the body of the guard he had drugged, and Lafayette went to grab the other one that Beauregard had shocked.
“This key works on all the locks?” he demanded of Podolski.
The desk sergeant nodded. Lafayette arrived, dragging the last of the guards and dropped him in the cell. Jennings slammed the door shut and immediately began looking into the cells for Michelle. He got to the last of them and saw a far too familiar sight, a stern Russian face stretched into a smile.
“Captain Jennings,” Anastasia Petrova said as she stood up from the bunk she had been sitting on. “I am surprised. And that does not happen often.”
Jennings scowled. “If I were to shoot you right now, would that surprise you?” he demanded.
“Not in the slightest,” she responded. “I vouldn’t necessarily blame you either after vhat I did to you. But it vas only business, it vasn’t personal.”
“I take getting shot personally,” Jennings growled, but he did not raise his weapon. “But I don’t murder people. I would rather see you rot in this cage, but since I know there’s a good chance this ship will be destroyed in a very short amount of time, I guess it’s really just a short stay of execution.”
“Mon capitaine, la fille n’est pas ici,” Lafayette suddenly called to him.
“What?” Jennings hissed.
“I looked in every cell,” he responded.
Petrova laughed. “Vosler, I owe you some money,” she said with a throaty laugh as she turned to her lieutenant who was seated on the bunk behind her. Seeing Jennings’ inquisitive stare out of the corner of her eyes, she turned back to him and said, “He bet me that you vould show up here. He also bet that you vould be here looking for the girl, and I said you vould only come here to kill us yourself. Looks like I vas mistaken, da?”
“Keep talking and you may just win that bet,” Jennings said as he leveled his pistol again. “Where is the girl?”
“Vith the Gael,” she replied. She saw the contemplative look on Jennings’ face and she laughed. “I know vhat you’re thinking. You’re vondering if that computer of yours can track her down,” she said. “A thousand lifeforms on board this ship… how long vould it take to narrow that down?” She paused for a moment and her eyes narrowed fiercely. “If only you knew a vay to make finding her easier, da?”
“Tell me how to find her or I’ll kill you,” he said.
“Nyet,” she spat. “You already told me that this ship is about to go down in flames, da? Kill me now or I die in a few hours. I take my chances… unless you vish to make an accord?”
“Tell me how to find her, and I’ll let you out,” he said. “You have my word.”
“Nyet,” she responded again. “You let me out first. Me and my men. I know you consider yourself a man of honor, but all the same, I have the cards in this hand, and I prefer speaking in free air.”
“Fine. Just you and Vosler,” Jennings growled. “You renege, I’ll kill you twice.”
Using Podolski’s key, he unlocked the door and Petrova stepped out into the hallway, Vosler lumbering not too far behind, his wounded arm hanging rather limply from his torso.
“Much better,” Petrova said. Reaching out a hand, she demanded, “The key?”
“Not a good idea,” Beauregard said.
“We’ve still got all the guns,” Jennings growled back to her. To Petrova, he said, “How do I find her?”
Petrova tsked, but said, “Since I did shoot you, consider this an olive branch. The Gael snapped a slave collar around her neck, Gael design, Gael power signature.”
“Minerva?” Jennings demanded as he handed the key over to Petrova, who immediately started unlocking the cells her bounty hunters were in.
“I’m scanning, captain,” Minerva’s reply came in his ear bud. “Stand-by.”
Jennings looked to Vosler who was eyeing him curiously. “Sorry about the arm,” he said.
Vosler glanced down at the wound, shrugged with one arm and said, “Just business.”
“Captain, I have her,” Minerva announced just as an alarm began caterwauling in the corridor.
Chapter 33
1
Plasma fire raked down the brig corridor, hitting several of Petrova’s bounty hunters as almost everyone hit the deck. Selena Beauregard was closest to the door and threw her body to the side of it. Without looking, she threw her pistol around the corner and opened fire, emptying the charge completely. She did not hit anyone, but it gave Jennings enough cover to race forward, dive through the door and fire twice at a Terran Gael Force soldier that had been using the desk as cover.
Jennings’ second shot hit the guard in the shoulder, and he spun around and fell to the floor. The captain started to leap over the desk to disarm him when more rapid fire plasma rounds ripped into the desk and he fell down next to it. The shots were coming from the right of the brig door, down the corridor where the security offices, briefing rooms and the armory was, but Jennings was too well pinned down to do anything about it.
Lafayette spun out from the brig corridor’s doorway, the automatic plasma rifle in his hand barking and sending a colorful burst of red energy into the hallway before he had to duck back behind the door as plasma ripped past the open doorway. Hearing a whistle, Jennings turned to look down the brig corridor and saw Fix crouching in front of the duffel bag Jennings had been carrying. He drew a plasma rifle from it and slid it across the floor to Jennings.
Grabbing the weapon eagerly, Jennings primed it and rolled out into the line of fire, sending a short burst of plasma to cover his movement. He rolled back behind the desk almost immediately, but he had seen what he needed to see. There were at least a dozen TGF security officers down the hallway, taking turns hiding in the doorways of the rooms leading off the hall and firing indiscriminately at where Jennings hid.
“Minerva, report,” he demanded.
He barely heard her voice over the sound of the plasma fire as Lafayette opened up again. “A ship-wide security alert has been ordered,” she replied. “All forces on patrol were ordered to re-take the security station. All security forces not currently on duty were ordered to armories in various locations throughout the ship and were then sent to vital areas: the bridge, engineering, the hangar bays.”
“Dammit,” Jennings growled as he rolled away from the desk and fired again, noting with some satisfaction that he struck a guard in the leg before he took cover
again.
Lafayette opened fire again without really trying to hit anyone, and Beauregard sprinted from the brig corridor, dove over top of the semi-circular desk, and sprang to her feet to the left of the opening to the corridor the TGF held. Whirling around she fired once and immediately darted back to the side of the hall’s egress. She had brought down the nearest soldier with that attack, the one that had advanced the closest to their position.
“How the hell did this happen, Minerva?” Jennings demanded.
“I’m sorry, captain,” the NAI replied, sounding almost sheepish. “There was a code that needed to be typed in by the desk sergeant every ten minutes or it triggers an alert. It’s not in the files or the protocols. It did not show until the alarm had been sounded.”
“Wonderful, did you lock down the elevator?” he demanded.
“Of course,” she replied as the desk around Jennings split in half with a new cannonade from the TGF forces. “Reinforcements will re-deploy and attempt to reinforce security from the stairs leading down from the officer quarters and the upper levels of the ship. And captain, they know I’m here. They’re trying to root me out right now. If they lock me out…” Her voice trailed off.
Minerva realized just as Jennings did that their entire plan was unraveling. They had counted on Michelle being in the brig. They had counted on being able to maintain stealth a lot longer. In battle, you count on a lot of things, but the Moltke the Elder had a poetic retort on the subject: no plan of battle survives contact with the enemy. A boxer had put it more succinctly in the twentieth century: everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
Jennings grimaced and then growled, “Enough of this shit.”
Grabbing the double-barreled grenade launcher out of the holster on his back, Jennings stood up from behind the desk and pulled the trigger. Twin streaks of smoke leapt forward as a roar sounded in the narrow confines of the security station and the weapon bucked in Jennings’ hand. There was a series of panicked shouts coming from the TGF forces in the hallway as they dove deeper into the rooms they had been using as cover or raced back down the hallway. The grenades flew into the corridor’s ceiling, exploding in a brilliant flash of red-white fire that surged back into the security station’s main room, forcing Beauregard to dive out of the way, Jennings to take cover and everyone else to dive deeper into the brig’s corridor. The entire room filled with smoke and then became quiet for a moment, the silence only broken by the sound of two empty grenade shells hitting the floor and Jennings ramming two live rounds into the barrels.
Holstering the launcher, Jennings drew the automatic rifle back up and moved forward into the hallway the TGF soldiers had held. Lafayette and Fix followed him, their weapons raised and ready. A massive amount of twisted steel, cabling, piping, stone and warped plastic had filled the hall, blocking the passage completely. They still had access to two of the rooms that had led off the hall. The first was occupied by the man that Beauregard had killed and appeared to be a briefing room of some kind. The second room was an armory and had two semi-conscious TGF soldiers that Jennings ordered to be thrown into the brig with the others.
Petrova and her still breathing men made their way out into the smoky air of the security station and were joined quickly by Fix and Lafayette. Jennings walked back from the armory and over to where Beauregard still lay on the ground. She looked to be all right and reached up with a hand, which Jennings took and then pulled her to her feet.
“All right,” he announced to everyone with a voice of authority. “We’ve got a minor problem. Security knows that we are on board obviously and they are moving to lock down all secure areas, including the hangar bay and engineering.
Lafayette groaned. “Mon capitaine, a major part of our plan was blowing the Intrepid’s FTL engine,” he pointed out. To a curious look from Petrova, he added, “No point in escaping from here if they can follow us, non?”
“Got enough men now,” Fix pointed out. “Could take engineering in an honest firefight.”
Petrova immediately laughed. “Ah, you seem to think that ve vill join your merry band,” she said. “I think not.”
“We let you out,” Jennings said.
“I appreciate that you let us out of the cells, but I have already paid you for that,” she replied with a sly smile. “Nyet, I think ve vill take my ship and leave.”
“You’re going to have trouble getting away from the Intrepid if they still have an FTL engine,” Beauregard pointed out.
“I’ll take my chances,” Petrova replied and she beckoned to her men to follow her to the lift.
Just as she passed Jennings, he called to her, “There’s also the small problem with your ship.”
Petrova turned on her heel immediately and demanded of him angrily, “Vhat did you do to my ship?”
“Well, I wasn’t anticipating letting you out of here,” Jennings began. “So, I went ahead and changed all the access codes to the ship’s systems.”
“You did vhat?” Petrova demanded.
“You know what, don’t even worry about it,” Jennings said, waving her away indifferently. “You’ve probably got a hacker in that group there. It will probably only take them seven or eight hours to break the codes. Shouldn’t be a problem with TGF security running around all over the place.”
Petrova let loose a series of Russian curse words, but Vosler had a slight grin on his face. “Very vell,” she said after a pregnant pause. “My men fight vith you. Ve blow up the FTL engine and then you give me back my Grey Vistula.”
“Actually, you’ll be fighting with them,” Jennings nodded toward Fix and Lafayette. “I’m going after the girl.”
“And if you die?” Petrova demanded.
“Minerva will reset the access codes back to your originals,” he said.
After considering this for a moment, she nodded curtly.
Jennings flashed a fake smile and said, “That’s our second agreement in like ten minutes. If we keep this up, we’ll be the best of friends.” Petrova merely scowled in reply, but Jennings pointed down the corridor with the caved-in ceiling and added, “The room on the left is an armory.”
Petrova and her bounty hunters went to go grab themselves arms and armor, and Jennings’ crew came around him. “The entrances to engineering will be heavily guarded,” Lafayette said. “Even with Petrova’s crew, we’ll take heavy casualties.”
Nodding, Jennings asked, “Minerva, can you find them a way around?”
“How do you feel about ventilation ducts, Monsieur Lafayette?” Minerva responded.
“Ah, merde,” Lafayette muttered as he held the earpiece a little tighter to his ear and started listening to Minerva’s instructions.
Petrova returned with four uniforms in her arms and tossed one to Jennings and each of his crew. “Security uniforms,” she said. “Might give us a little bit of ease in navigating the ship.”
“Thanks,” Jennings said as he shrugged out of the pilot’s jumpsuit and his weapons belts, and then threw on the security uniform and re-attached his weapons. The rest of his crew did the same as Petrova’s men emerged from the armory dressed in the same uniforms and armed to the teeth. “Lafayette’s got a back door into engineering, and Fix has got the explosives. Good luck.”
“Ka Chortku,” Petrova responded as she and her men fell into line behind Lafayette who was leading them into the monitoring room.
None of her men even flinched when Fix poured a full clip of plasma into the monitors. “Better safe than sorry,” he responded to Jennings’ inquiring look.
Jennings turned away from them and walked over to the lift. “Alright, Minerva,” he said. “Open her up.”
The door slid open and he stepped in. Surprisingly enough, so did Selena Beauregard. He looked at her questioningly for a moment, but did not say anything.
“Thanks,” she said.
“For what?” he asked.
“For not asking me why I’m coming,” she replied.
“O
h, I already know,” Jennings answered with a wry laugh, but did not elaborate further. “Alright, Minerva, take us to Michelle.”
2
General Dominic Ounimbango rubbed his temples as he stepped out of the secure lift and onto the bridge. His uniform looked disheveled and his eyes were bleary, like someone who had just been awakened. In point of fact, he had. The day had been far too long already with a suddenly overly-demanding and irritable Gael Overseer bothering him incessantly and undermining his authority, a sudden order from Pahhal to leave in the ship’s runabout to capture a relative insignificant terrorist from what he could make of it, and a long round trip at FTL just for good measure. He was exhausted and had collapsed into bed just about the moment the runabout had arrived back at the Intrepid. Now, he had a massive headache that felt like it was cleaving his skull in two, and his eyes kept trying to force their way shut. Making matters worse was the incessant, blaring alarm that was echoing through every level of the ship.
Colonel Maliq al-Ansari, his executive officer, strode toward Ounimbango as soon as he arrived on the bridge. Al-Ansari was in his forties, but had the athletic physique of a younger man. He was olive skinned and had a thin moustache that stretched across his upper lip. His shaved head glistened as if he had the time to buff and oil it somehow before racing to the bridge.
“What the hell is going on?” Ounimbango demanded as al-Ansari saluted him and he returned the gesture.
“Not sure,” he replied curtly. “The call came in from security, but we have not been able to establish contact with anyone there. Sensors showed weapons fire in the security station before they went offline.”
“The sensors went offline?” Ounimbango said as he led al-Ansari to the raised observation deck where his computer terminal was. “How is that even possible?”
“There’s a rogue program in the computer,” he responded.
“A virus?” Ounimbango demanded as he settled into his seat and started pulling up information.
“This is something else,” al-Ansari replied. “The engineering techs are trying to isolate it or at least lock it out, but they haven’t been successful yet.”
111 Souls (Infinite Universe) Page 32
