“Pass the word, all systems are to be shut down and all personnel are to immediately report to the engineering section,” Collins ordered, getting up from the captain’s chair and passing by the body of the Alamo’s former captain.
Ensign Kelly and her crew wanted to bury the bodies of their comrades in space, but he had ordered them to be left in place. If they were boarded again the lack of bodies might tip off the enemy. It almost caused a mutiny amongst the surviving crew, but once they had settled down they realized that he was right.
The only remains that were sent into space were those who had died in the engineering section and had been decomposing. Gunny Masters and Chief Bell had volunteered to remove them, having stronger stomachs than the young pups and no emotional attachment to the departed. Mike for the first time in his life had to read the mass for the dead, commending their bodies to space.
Reaching engineering, he found that Gunny had already completed a headcount and everyone was accounted for. He was hoping that once more the old frigate’s heavily armored aft section would shield them from a sensor scan for life signs. Lt. Cappilo, Ensign Kelly and Chief Bell were still working on the engines and hadn’t even looked up as he entered.
The room was crowded with the combined crews, but he managed to spot Martin as he was just finishing the repairs to the auxiliary controls. His friend gave him a quick thumb’s up indicating that the controls were almost ready.
“Mister Rabb, see who is armed and what they have, then disperse our extra side arms to those crewmen that can still fight,” he ordered, knowing that if they were boarded their one chance would be to overwhelm the unsuspecting boarding party and then make a run for it. That was if the engines could be brought online before they were towed into the Mammoth’s belly.
“Sir, we have set up the main coolant valve to once more empty into the hallway and form an ice wall,” Gunny Masters reported.
Mike nodded, but didn’t want to take that step yet.
“We’ll leave that to the very last second and even then we may have to fight and run.”
Gunny returned his nod, understanding that if they were found out they didn’t want three meters of ice trapping them in the engine room.
“Keep an eye on the external sensors and let me know when those shuttles are near,” Mike said, trusting the old sergeant to keep him updated.
The old grandfather gave him a grin and squeezed his arm.
“Don’t worry Mike, you’ll get us out of this,” he said sounding more confident than the young man felt.
He returned his smile and placed his hand on top of the older man’s.
“Thanks Jack, but I don’t think I could do it without you and the crew.”
Both men nodded in silent respect for each other and then moved off to carry out their duties. Mike moved to the back of the room where the severely wounded were resting. All four were looking much better and were sitting up and talking.
Collins stopped to retrieve the medical scanner from the platoon bag and was surprised to find it missing. Looking around he found it in the hands of the wounded doctor.
“Hello,” he said, kneeling down next to her to be on her level. “I’m Lt. Mike Collins from the attack cruiser Star Wolf.”
She looked not only better, but also beautiful and was smiling from ear to ear.
“Hello, I’m Dr. Angelique Duarte,” she said with a French accent. Still smiling as she handed him the scanner.
Mike took the pad and did a fast scan of her. Almost all of her wounds had been healed and new pink skin was replacing her once bunt flesh.
“I’d like to thank you for not only rescuing us, but also for saving my life,” she said with her sweet French accent sounding musical to his ears.
Mike chuckled a little at her praise.
“I haven’t rescued anyone yet and I was just lucky enough to have the latest Heal-X super drugs on hand.”
She frowned and grabbed his hand.
“You’re too modest, though I must admit that these new drugs are fantastic!”
He had to agree, the old Type I and Type II Heal-X drugs took close to fifteen minutes to show any kind of benefit. He was just going to comment to that affect when he was called away.
“I have to go, just try to get some rest,” he instructed softly.
She frowned again as her pale flawless face creased in displeasure.
“I feel much better and I believe I should be getting up,” she said, starting to rise.
Mike grabbed her arm and helped her to her feet.
“If you feel up to it, but don’t over do it.”
She smiled and told him to go as a crewman called for him a second time. Giving her a quick nod he turned and rushed to get to the hallway’s console. Martin, Rabb and Gunny were standing near the panel, having ordered everyone else to stay inside the engineering section.
“What’s the word?” he asked.
Martin answered first, “The shuttles are attaching tow lines, but don’t seem to be preparing to board.”
“Bad and good news, what about the engines?”
Gunny shook his head, “Mister Cappilo and Chief Bell are still working on them.”
“We’re not going to make it,” Rabb commented as they felt the old frigate lurch as it was given a sharp tug from the tow shuttles.
“What do we do now boss?” Martin said, looking right at him.
He then noticed that they were all looking at him waiting for him to come up with a bright idea. Their eyes felt like weights bearing down at him. Staring at the monitor he took a breath and then let it out slowly through his nose. A second later he was smiling having thought of something,
“Gentlemen, have you ever heard the story of the Trojan Horse?”
They all broke out into smiles and an infectious kind of laughter quickly followed as they rushed back into the engine room to make preparations.
Ship Mistress Krall-Ly toyed with the hilt of her red clay composite patar. She, like most of the nobility of Kardua, was a student of the Vorooshin sword art and an avid duelist. The death games were not only about prestige and power but were a way to advance socially and remove one’s political enemies.
She had spent her life fighting and training both as a ship’s officer and as a master of the patar. It had served her well until recently. She had been a ship mistress of a modern destroyer and a master of the forth rank of the patar.
Unfortunately, she had felt that she had been insulted by a young, upcoming officer and had challenged her to a blood match. The fight was suppose to be only to the drawing of first blood but the stupid officer rushed her and practically impaled herself on Krall-Ly’s patar.
What made matters worse was that this dead officer’s mother was well connected to the ruling council. So, instead of sitting on the bridge of her destroyer she found herself as ship mistress of a captured human vessel.
The ship wasn’t even a war vessel, but a recovery ship with a stupid name that meant nothing to her, Mammoth. No glorious battles for her or the chance for further honors. She had to spend her days picking up broken and damaged ships and hauling them back to port for repairs.
It was enough to make her kill, something she was eager to do. The smelly captive human crew was still onboard and was serving as her crew with appropriate guards standing nearby.
At first, the humans refused to serve or assist them. They were quite a stubborn lot, but a lesson was all they needed to insure behavior, one she was glad to teach them.
She started with their captain, an overweight man that had dared to spit in her face. She had gathered the human crew on the recovery deck making sure they were amply surrounded by her heavily armed guardswomen. She then gave the captain a sporting chance by giving him her spare patar.
The match could have been over quickly but she was teaching a lesson - a lesson that took ten minutes to finish. In the end the captain was unrecognizable having received almost a hundred slashes and cuts render his body to pieces.
It was most merciful when she finally took his noseless, eyeless and earless head from his body.
The human crew had surged forward and her armed guards had threatened to shoot to force them back. One young enlisted man had grabbed for a guardswoman’s rifle and was cut in half from a burst of her human copied gauss rifle.
The first officer was next and though he proved much more of a challenge having had some sort of sword training, yet he died pierced through the neck from an angular thrust of her on blade.
She then executed the three youngest crewmen, feeling quite correctly that they were the least needed and would serve as an example that their lack of rank would not protect them. In her people’s military system, the death of an officer might be greeted as a good thing, offering opportunity for advancement or simply a chance to see the upper social class suffer.
The human second officer finally gave in after seeing his underlings killed and had ordered his crew to cooperate. Three days later they were once more gathered on the recovery deck where the crew watched the second officer be dissected for letting one of his men try to sabotage the bender drives.
In all honesty the foolish man had no way of knowing that his engineer had planned such treachery, but he was held responsible nonetheless. This time the lesson had been learned well and since then no attempts at further subterfuge or insurrection had occurred.
To insure their cooperation most of the unneeded crew was kept locked up and under heavy guard. At the first sign of trouble five men would be shot followed by another five men until said disobedience had ended. This made for a smooth running ship but now it was also a very boring ship.
The sight of the Confederation attack cruiser was enough to make her blood rush, but the squadron mistress had ordered her ship to stay to the rear under the protection of two destroyer escorts. It was enough to make her scream and she was considering giving this human crew a refresher course in the patar to vent her frustration. Unfortunately, that would have to wait until after they had finished recovering the wreckage from the system. Once that was done - then she would have her fun.
The work was going quickly as they had already brought the two damaged frigates onboard as well as most of the wrecked fighters. Moving her ship closer they recovered the bow and the aft sections of an old cruiser and placed them on the lower storage deck. They had just enough room to load one of their own crushed destroyer escorts though it looked like nothing more than a twisted piece of metal. They had also found an intact armored shuttle that must have been abandoned when the human fleet had been destroyed. The rest of the ships would have to wait until their next run which with any luck would be their last.
They had been doing this work for the last three weeks and this was their fourth run to recover the dead and damaged ships. When she got back to port she would use every favor she had to try and regain a combat posting. Failing that she would seek to make openings by challenging ship mistresses to death matches. Any fate was better than this death by boredom and the smell of these human creatures.
Krall-Ly was still thinking this when the bridge’s main door was blown open and two armed and armored humans came rushing in with guns blazing.
Mike had been surprised that no boarding parties had entered the Alamo either before they were towed to the Mammoth or after they had entered the recovery ship’s bowels. Of course ten minutes after they had been brought onboard Mister Cappilo announced that the bender and maneuver drives were operational and ready for startup.
Collins frowned at his big ass smile and slapped him upside his head. The Italian shrugged his shoulders and kept smiling as he dodged a second blow.
Martin had tapped into the Mammoth’s computer systems and had run a ship wide scan for life signs. There were fifty-five humans and twenty-eight Karduans onboard. At this time there were five humans on the bridge with four Karduans. In engineering there were six humans and eight Kardies. Various other groups were manning the shuttles and carrying out recovery operations, but almost half of the human captives were being held on C Deck at what was identified as the ship’s galley. Surprisingly, only five Blues guarded them.
“So what’s the plan Ulysses?” Marin joked as the Alamo’s makeshift command crew gathered around for their final orders.
Among those assembled were Rufo, Martin, and Gunny along with Chief Bell, Mister Rabb and Ensign Kelly. Mike had unintentionally left the doctor out of their meeting, leaving her to worry about treating the crew and preparing for casualties.
“Right now, I’d say we wait until they are done picking up the wreckage and have refueled. When they leave with the rest of the squadron or if the Wolf returns we will then make our move to take the ship. This will give us a better chance of escaping if we are already close to the gravity well. Once we take the ship we will bend out with the rest of the squadron, except our destination will be a little different.”
“What do we do until then?” Kelly inquired, knowing it would take hours for the recovery ship to finish bringing the broken vessels onboard.
“We watch and record their movements, Martin will continue to work on gaining control of their computer systems and the rest of us will work in shifts to do as much as we can to get the Alamo operational. We may still have to blast our way out of here and make a run for it. Those not on duty are to eat and rest,” he ordered and then looked to Gunny Masters. “Top, post guards at the airlocks and keep a man at the sensor panel to watch for any curious enemy. They should be pretty busy so I’m not expecting any visitors, but you never know.”
Martin raised his hand to ask another question before they started to leave.
“Auxiliary controls are online, life support is functioning in the sealed sections, and the engines are ready for startup. We need to get more turrets operational as well as fire control.”
“We can’t go outside to work on the turrets so only interior repairs also let’s try to get more permanent hull repairs in place to replace the emergency patches,” Cappilo added, thinking that the two repair robots they had brought along would be of great assistance.
Collins nodded his agreement and then said, “Lets get to it people,” dismissing his command staff. It still felt weird that he was in command and he quietly thanked his teachers that he was able to last this long.
Six hours later the Mammoth had moved to the gas giant to refuel and then followed the rest of the squadron to the beta gravity well. The ship’s time was almost ten at night, but it wasn’t stopping the Blues from bending out of the system as soon as possible. The ship’s sensors still showed the same number of crewmen and captors on the bridge and in engineering, but now all of the other humans were in the ship’s galley. The Karduan guards had mostly gone to bed, occupying crew quarters on C and B decks.
Angelique had awoken Mike with a soft tug on his arm. Springing awake he reached for his carbon sword. He was coming right out of a dream, one in which he was in a cloud filled room surrounded by enemies. The worst part of dream was that he couldn’t find his Krager and he was just reaching for his carbon sword when he was awakened.
He hadn’t had a dream where he was lost or in danger since he was a child. After he had started studying martial arts he never had such dreams. On the rare occasion that he had such dreams he never lost a fight or felt that he was in danger. Most of his bad dreams were about past girlfriends and lost loves.
“Oh my,” Dr. Duarte gasped at his reaction, “Are you all right?”
“Bad dream,” he said, smelling something good and seeing a steaming mug in her hand. “What’s that?”
She smiled and all thoughts of his dream faded away.
“Coffee, we managed to get to the galley and have been trying to prepare some hot food out of the battle rations you brought,” she said as the musical sound of her accented voice caused him to smile.
The good doctor noticed his grin and immediately blushed, “What is so funny?”
He shrugged and tried to look innocent.
“Noth
ing, just if I knew we were dining fancy I would have brought my dress uniform.”
It was bad line and a worse joke, but she laughed and that made it all right. Accepting the coffee, he took a tentative sip and was surprised at the taste. Whatever she did, the coffee was wonderful and he was about to ask her when he heard his name called out from across the room.
Handing her the cup he managed an awkward smile as he rose to his feet.
“Sorry, I’ll buy you breakfast when I get back,” he promised.
“I will keep you to that,” she said, her eyes looking sad. She knew he was going into danger and sensing the character of this man she felt he would put himself into the worst of it.
Mike smiled again, this time it was a little easier. Turning to walk away he stopped and crossed back to her. She looked at him questioningly and instead of what she thought he was going to give her, he reached down to the pistol at his hip.
He was carrying two gauss pistols; a Smith and Wesson standard military model that he gotten from the stores onboard the Jillian. The second was his CCF model Krager still in its shoulder holster. Handing the S&W to her he started to explain its function but she cut him off.
“I’m familiar with its use,” she said and then on impulse leaned forward and kissed his scrubby cheek. He was shocked but smiling and she had to give him a little shove to get him moving as his name was called out for a second time.
Walking away he was still in shock as he touched his cheek wondering what had just happened and realizing that he needed a shave.
The Wolf’s armed and armored boarding parties were gathered in the hallway awaiting his arrival. They looked serious and grim, but ready for action if a bit apprehensive. Mike gave them a big smile and slowed his pace so as not to make them nervous. It seemed to work as several forbidding faces broke into smiles.
The Log of the Gray Wolf (Star Wolf Squadron Book 1) Page 33
