Stox continued working, oblivious to the creaking and groaning around them as both ships’ steel superstructures strained against each other. The sound of atmosphere venting hissed next, causing Adam to release one hand and grab Stox by his body armor where it ended near the small of his back. For a brief second or two, a tiny sliver of dark, starlit space appeared at the bottom of the hatchway as the two ships lightly bounced away from each other a second time. Then the magnetic grapplers, amplified to full power, pulled the vessels tightly against each other and locked them firmly together. “Watch it,” Adam sighed heavily. “We wouldn’t want our cutter taking a ride into the next world before his appointed time.” The larger man continued welding, but flashed him a brief, lopsided grin in response.
There was minimal lighting in the corridor, so the intermittent flashes from the torch fire cast all kinds of eerie, flickering shadows on the walls. The grim expressions on the faces of the soldiers remained fixed, also patterned by the brief bursts of alternating light and shadow while everyone waited patiently. Stox made remarkable progress with his welder, and Arte Kasik suddenly turned toward the Zaketh assigned to them. “We need flash bangs over here,” he howled without a hint of shyness. “We’re going through first over here, and we’d like to live.” Wordlessly, one of their Zaketh allies handed over a vest loaded with grenades.
Snarling furiously, Janney Stox reared back and kicked the hole he had been cutting with deliberate, precision-timed force. The oblong, semi-circular piece of metal with glowing orange, still-smoldering edges fell inward, trailing white wisps of smoke. Seconds later, the sound of other welders finishing their work reached Adam’s ears. Immediately after that, Kasik and others tossed flash bang grenades into the empty holes, some left, some right. The chaos, sudden explosions and flashes of lights increased exponentially, accompanied by the sounds of shouting men and intermittent bursts of gunfire. More grenades went off, this time real ones throwing metal fragments in all directions. With Stox dropping back for the few seconds required to toss the welder and goggles aside, Adam seized his opportunity and charged ahead of him, using his shield to temporarily block the entrance. Brief yellow and orange sparkles on the outer edge of his shield were sinister indicators of fragment impacts. Had he not acted, those behind him would either be wounded or dead.
“Move it or lose it!” Hollis shouted ferociously from behind him, anxious to contribute to the mayhem.
Adam was already gone, having turned left as ordered upon entering the enemy ship. Shouldering his rifle, he pulled back both wrists and opened fire with his camouflaged wrist weapons, sending repeated high-powered bursts of energy sizzling ahead of him. This corridor too was dimly lit, but he was surprised at the unexpectedly light resistance. Although his blasts dropped half a dozen or so enemy soldiers, all dressed completely in black with bright green trim, the vast majority of the weapons fire flashed down the corridor unobstructed, splashing eerily against a bulkhead at the far end of the walkway. Clouds of swirling gray and black smoke made it difficult to see, so he continued moving, hearing the clunking of the boots from those following close behind. He turned right at the far end of the corridor, reading the signs and descending a ladder well by holding on with both hands and sliding his boots along the rails to the next lower deck.
Snee Vasten’s voice crackled sharply in his earwig. “All hands are aboard. Secure the enemy vessel.”
Gunfire from above and behind told him all he needed to know… the soldiers that followed were finishing off the men he had left stunned. Above him, sparks flashed at the top of the ladder well as stray bullets ricocheted loudly in the enclosed space he had vacated only seconds before. The sound of men screaming in agony ended suddenly, with the stink of death and rank odor of gunfire reaching down toward his nostrils. This isn’t right, Adam thought fiercely to himself as he continued moving, following a gradually curving corridor toward the supply ship’s engine room. Something about this doesn’t feel right. The tactical database from his implant, stored right alongside its linguistic equivalent, told him that this was so. Kaufield’s unseen presence was there as well, not speaking directly to him this time, but also reassuring him that his instincts were correct. There was indeed something amiss. The unseen PTP link between the two made certain that their minds were never separated, allowing them to share strategy.
Adam knew what was wrong the instant he first glimpsed the small engine room, virtually empty of enemy soldiers. After using the wrist guns to stun another pair of black-clad soldiers, he strode briskly over to one of the computer consoles and began reading its data, tapping commands into its systems and verifying his deductions before announcing them. Behind him, Crasel and Zaketh warriors alike poured through the open hatchway, breaking up into small groups that began searching the entire room, its rows of computer banks and assorted hiding places for additional enemy personnel.
Amazingly, there weren’t any.
One of the Zaketh noticed Adam working at the primary access controls and dropped back to flank him. “Shut down their PTP drive,” he snapped sharply. “Make certain the cockpit crew is unable to initiate transit.”
“There isn’t any PTP drive,” Adam snarled irritably.
The Zaketh stared at him, completely dumbfounded. “What?”
Big Cren Hollis walked right up to Adam and clapped him on the back with a clout that would have injured a smaller man. “That was the greatest charge into enemy territory I’ve ever seen!” he thundered loudly, clearly impressed. “Worth a toast or two tonight, that run will be!”
Ignoring them both, Adam removed his helmet and touched the earwig in his right ear. “Vasten, can you hear me?” he growled heatedly, his normal patience under duress failing. “This is Adam Roh of the Crasel.”
A burst of interference snapped loudly in his ear and promptly cleared. “This is Vasten,” came the slightly delayed reply. “The ship is ours. How soon can you have the engine room disabled?”
“This is some sort of damned trap,” continued Adam as he exhaled with clear frustration. “There are no Point-to-Point drive functions active on our consoles here,” he told his temporary CO. “This ship may not even have one, if the size of the equipment in this engine room is any indication. The normal software needed to run PTP isn’t loaded and available on-line. I already checked.”
This time the response was immediate. “Explain.”
“There is no PTP capability currently active aboard this ship,” he repeated. “Did you see the men in the corridors when we boarded? There were only enough of them to put one in each window. We saw what looked to be a fully manned enemy vessel, but what we’ve found is some sort of a decoy.”
Vasten’s voice, even electronically filtered, almost dripped with sarcasm. “Are you certain?”
“There were no markings on the exterior hull identifying a specific clan,” he pointed out, repeating Hollis’ earlier comment. “Don’t you find that to be a bit strange?” As he spoke, one of the monitors in front of him blinked a bright, red-lighted warning at him.
Someone else abruptly made a decision to interrupt Vasten’s channel. “Another enemy ship has just dropped out of transit behind us,” the unknown Zaketh informed them. “It appears, based on hull markings, to be a Yakiir warship. Three shuttles are breaking off of its outer hull and moving toward the Pyrhh at standard intercept speed. All troops return to home ASAP. Prepare for boarding countermeasures.”
“Control. Confirm that.”
“Confirmed, Vasten. Command code Zeta-Alpha-Three.”
“You have no prize here, Vasten,” hollered a clearly frustrated Adam Roh. “We’ll be lucky to get out of this mess with our lives and ship intact.” He waved his hand twice forcefully, pointing toward the hatch they had used to gain access. “Let’s get out of here and back aboard the Pyrhh,” he barked in his best command tone. “If we don’t, we’re likely dead men walking.” That was when he noticed that the Zaketh soldier who had been standing next to him was gone. H
e had turned his head away from the occasional sounds of fighting that still echoed in from the outer corridors for only a few brief seconds. “Where did our escort go?” he asked, turning to face Arte Kasik and Cren Hollis. “When did they leave?”
Both men shrugged in response. “A second or two ago. They just charged right back out of here,” chuckled Kasik. “Almost as fast as you ran in, as a matter of fact.”
“Shit! They put us on a separate Comm frequency,” he barked with frustration, abandoning the blinking, colored consoles on the engine control console. “We weren’t hearing everything that was going on. We have to go boys, or we’re going to get ourselves left behind.”
By the time they managed to backpedal all the way up the stairwell and reached the hatchway leading to the entry corridor, the sound of venting atmosphere was clearly audible. Escaping wind rushing in from behind them grabbed loose hair from Adam’s head and wrapped it around his face while he glared defiantly at the dead bodies already lifting into the air and floating toward the multiple hull breaches.
“What happened here?” wondered Cren Hollis as the four Crasel pulled up short behind him.
We missed our opportunity to leave,” Adam sighed, closing the hatch in front of him to protect against the increasing loss of atmosphere on the other side. He sealed it tightly to protect them from the multiple holes in the hull… openings that they themselves had helped create! “The Pyrhh has already pulled away from us so that they can confront the incoming warship.”
“Those Zaketh blokes just up and left us?” Janney Stox shouted angrily.
“Yes they did,” nodded Adam ruefully, mulling the matter over in his mind. “Don’t worry. We’ll probably live longer over here, anyway. The Pyrhh is about to get boarded by a swarm of Yakiir.” He began walking back the way they came, in the general direction of the engine room. “Why don’t you fellows come with me,” he suggested calmly. “They should have schematics of this entire ship available on their main computer. I want to know where the cockpit is.”
“Why?” asked Arte Kasik curiously.
“Because I want a closer look at these so-called ferocious Yakiir,” decided Adam emphatically, removing his helmet and wiping dirt, along with a great deal of perspiration, from his brow. “This is, after all, a perfect opportunity to learn more about them.”
Cren Hollis waved him on. “Lead the way,” he suggested with a dark grin.
Aboard the enemy supply vessel…
By the time they reached the surprisingly small cockpit area, the battle was nearly underway. Two blocky shuttles had pulled alongside the Pyrhh to port and to starboard, preparing to dock with the larger vessel and effectively turn the tables on the former aggressors. The significantly larger Yakiir mother vessel hung back, trailed by a third shuttle that looked to be in place solely to defend the larger warship. Adam and his four Crasel friends were able to see everything through the large, crystal clear cockpit windows in front of the helm and navigation controls. The glass was all planes and sloping angles, dominated primarily by the huge enemy battle cruiser. Without a word, Adam seated himself in the forward pilot’s seat and began tapping commands into the computer work stations, searching for any details that would be helpful.
“Somebody’s going to lose out there, most probably the Zaketh,” pointed out Tran Wuu. “Once that happens, they’ll either come back here for us or transit away and leave us to rot slowly in space.”
“The cargo bays we passed on the way up here were full of crates and barrels,” Adam countered, continuing to pick away at the computer consoles. “I checked the weight on several of them to verify that there is, in fact, cargo inside. They’re coming back for this ship, you can count on it. It’s a tempting decoy that they will want to keep.” He glanced curiously out the windows in front of them, studying the huge, bright green markings painted on the side of the Yakiir battle cruiser, including a large, iconic logo. It looked like a clutching, four-fingered hand with the fingers curving downward. More like a claw of some kind, he decided silently, noticing the sharp, talon-like fingertips. What kind of alien beast serves as their official mascot, he wondered curiously.
“What are we going to do?” asked Arte Kasik bluntly. “This ship has no weapons or Point-to-Point.”
“We’re running out of time,” replied Adam impatiently, watching the Zaketh vessel’s normally steady course flounder as guns from the two shuttles fired briefly into its engine section. Sustaining damage, it was unable to transit safely away. Relentlessly, the Yakiir continued to press their surprise attack, shuttles on either side closing relentlessly in on the smaller warship. Desperate for additional options, Adam tried – solely on a whim – accessing the tactical database in his implant. It took a few seconds to retrieve the data he needed before he smiled with confidence, grabbing the pilot seat’s heavy harness and strapping himself in. “I highly recommend that you Crasel warriors find yourselves a seat and buckle up,” he suggested with a dark chuckle. “There aren’t any ‘Jesus handles’ to grab up here.”
In his mind, Kaufield’s presence stirred suddenly. [“What are you planning, Adam,”] wondered the former Captain curiously. [“You’re not a soldier.”]
[“Oh yes I am,”] objected Adam in response. [“I have served the Crasel, and was recently conscripted into service as a Zaketh warrior.”] Staring at the massive lines of the Yakiir cruiser with new insight, Adam fired up the small supply vessel’s maneuvering thrusters and sent the small ship accelerating in pursuit.
“What in blazes are you doing?” asked Janney Stox, his face paling. “Why are we moving?”
“This is your last chance,” said Adam brusquely. “Strap yourselves in tight while you still can. We’re going to help the Zaketh flip this battle right back around and assist them in seizing control of a Yakiir warship.”
“What?” Janney Stox put a burly hand on Adam’s shoulder. “Those bloody scoundrels left us behind to die a slow death out here in the dark of space! Or we could just as easily end up tortured for sport by the Yakiir.”
“This is a perfect opportunity to earn their trust,” Adam disagreed. “And to demonstrate that smaller clans can, in fact, work together successfully.”
Cren Hollis pulled Stox firmly away from Adam. “We’d better do as the man says,” the huge man suggested in his deep, baritone voice. “Adam Roh has proven his worth in battle. I will follow him.”
“Each of you accepted my trust and challenge,” Adam reminded them, “when you chose to walk out of that airlock with me.” He was holding nothing back, and their small, rectangular block of a vessel – whose design angled only slightly inward at the nose – continued to rocket toward the enemy. Watching the other ships grow steadily larger was the last straw for Stox and the others… nervously they seated themselves in empty chairs and began fastening the tightly-woven safety harnesses in place. The implant unexpectedly began projecting a colorful, graphical Heads-up-Display on the inner surface of his right eyeball, using his optic nerve as an upload conduit. He simply looked at the closest shuttle and shifted his gaze toward the Yakiir mother vessel, watching the speed and distance statistics change as they adapted to each new target he focused on.
“The Yakiir are no one to be trifled with,” noted Stox with growing fear.
Adam frowned at his continued superstitions. “You told me that you fellows haven’t encountered them.”
“That doesn’t mean we haven’t heard things. Dark things… terrible things.”
Adam shrugged off the other man’s comment and refocused his attention on the matter at hand. “How many troops does one of those smaller transports hold?” Adam asked curiously, staring at the shuttle hovering protectively behind its mother ship. Projected green and blue circles on the inner surface of his eyeball drifted over to center on the shuttle, and statistics assessing its size and capacity appeared next to them. Blinking red dots identified areas where exterior gun turrets rested, weapons that would be capable of targeting them. Reading inf
ormation from the eye HUD display while plunging the supply ship below the enemy’s plane of attack, Adam smiled. He estimated that at least forty soldiers would be waiting on that transport shuttle.
Waiting in case they’re needed.
“Three or four dozen, most likely,” Tran Wuu told him, all but confirming the HUD estimate. “They’re probably the officers and privileged soldiers,” he continued. “That’s the way the larger clans generally function. Those who have earned their position over time are elevated to a higher class and assume less risk. Dumb blokes like us and newbies… well, we get to go first.”
“That’s right,” agreed Kasik. “The officers hiding in back will show up once the enemy ship is secured so that they can gloat and walk around inspecting their prize.”
“That I did not know,” admitted Adam with a dry smile. Looping, overlapping blue and green course lines reached deeply into the distance on his internal eye HUD display, offering suggestions as to potential course changes. He loved having so many reliable alternatives instantly available, simply by reading the statistical data off the inside of his vision. He chose a new course and began tapping slight adjustments into the navigation console to his right. Then he grabbed the thruster handle confidently before pushing it ahead full.
Already traveling at a brisk pace, the small ship accelerated.
Adam’s Crasel friends barely had time enough to holler futilely at him before he nosed their new possession sharply upward. Everyone felt a massive, jarring impact immediately after the ship listed suddenly and sharply to starboard. The pointed edge at the front of their vessel’s port side rammed and then cut cleanly into the bottom of the smaller support shuttle. An instant later, the swiftly moving supply ship sliced the shuttle completely in two, roaring cleanly through a suddenly expanding debris field and continuing on its upward course. Noting only minimal damage to their own vessel on the damage control computer, Adam exhaled slowly and breathed a sigh of relief.
The Pathfinder Trilogy Page 45
