Bound By Law (Vigilante Book 3)

by Terry Mixon

  Because of Fleet’s reluctance, they weren’t even sure if Longbow was a Fleet name. It might be that the Cadre had renamed the ship after they’d taken possession, much as they had done for the cruiser Lioness.

  “Five minutes, Commodore,” Saburo said over the comlink. “If you and Agent Falcone could make your way down here, we’re ready to kick this party off.”

  “We’re on our way,” Brad said as he rose to his feet and locked the console out of habit. He waited at the hatch for Falcone to join him.

  She exited the bridge and strode purposefully toward the airlock they’d be using. Both of them were already clad in armored vac-suits so they’d be ready to exit the ship as soon as they arrived.

  “I rerouted the ship’s communications to my suit,” Falcone said. “If they call, I’ll answer them through my suit com. Not that I expect them to do so at this point in the refueling operations. The He-3 is already flowing. There’s no need for them to say anything unless a problem develops or their tanks are full.”

  “How long will it take to fill their tanks?” Brad asked as they headed down a ladder toward the appropriate deck.

  “That really depends. Most ships refuel long before they actually need to do so. They certainly don’t want to get below one-third capacity. My guess is that that ship is probably sitting at about fifty percent.

  “If that’s the case, it would probably take anywhere between half an hour to an hour to fill them. I can’t be certain, because I’m not sure what their capacity is.”

  Brad nodded. “That’s good. We should already be on board their ship before they feel the need to chat.”

  Saburo and the rest of the crew was waiting for them outside the cargo lock. With all of the ground combat mercenaries and mandatory crew for the tanker present, they had almost eighty people standing by, all armed and ready to take that carrier away from its Cadre crew.

  Brad clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention. “Listen up. Once we leave this tanker, we’re committed. No one is coming to rescue us. We either take that carrier or they take us.

  “Pay close attention to what’s going on around you. If you see something the rest of us need to know, pass it up the chain of command fast. If you get an order from us to do something unexpected, do the very best you can, because we’ll be counting on you. We’re playing this by ear and we’re going to need to know what each group is seeing.”

  He paused for a moment to allow that to sink in. “We don’t have deck plans, but we know where Engineering is. The teams headed there need to strike hard and fast. Protect our engineers because they’re going to do their flat level best to disable the drone controls and communications.

  “That’s going to save our friends from getting their Everlit guts shot out of them. Nothing we can do will stop that carrier from launching drones. Our best bet is to make sure they don’t get close enough to our ships to fire them. Does anyone have any questions? Anything at all?”

  Orlosky raised a big, meaty hand. “What about prisoners, Commodore? Do we assume everyone we meet is Cadre? This used to be a Fleet ship. Do you think they might still have Fleet prisoners aboard?”

  Brad raised his palms in a gesture of uncertainty. “Who knows? Keep your eyes peeled, and if you see someone that looks like a prisoner, let us know. Anyone armed, take them down hard. If someone surrenders, tie them up and keep pushing forward. We’ll clean up once we’re done.

  “Also, let’s think about computer files. Several of the fire teams are heading to areas where the computer center might be located. If you find it, cut it off from the rest of the ship. We’d like to keep them from remotely wiping the data. Shut the servers down and make sure they stay down.

  “I’m proud as Everlit stars of you all. I have no doubt we’re going to triumph today. Good luck.”

  Saburo turned to face his people and raised his arms over his head. “I expect the very best from each and every one of you today. You’re Vikings. Go show those bastards why they should be afraid of us. Now, everyone into the cargo lock.

  “We’ll exit the ship in three groups. Remember to keep radio silence. At this range, they’re going to be able to hear you sneeze. Once everyone is out onto the hull, we’ll go down the hoses like little ants. Then when we get to the carrier, everyone move to your designated entry points and wait for my signal. Vikings!”

  With that, the Vikings cheered, locked their helmets into place, and started loading themselves into the cargo airlock.

  Brad, Falcone, and the rest of the non-ground combat forces would be in the last group. He really hoped no one on the carrier was keeping a visual eye on the hoses. If so, the Vikings would be in for a very warm welcome.

  Gathering on the hull of the tanker took a surprisingly short period of time. Brad had overseen a couple of drills on the way to the asteroid and watched Saburo work his people hard. Everyone knew precisely where they needed to be and what they needed to do.

  Even so, he thought they just cut a minute off their best time.

  The hoses carrying the He-3 from the tanker to the carrier had a couple of contradictory characteristics. They had to be flexible in order to be stowed, but to serve in transshipping fuel, they needed to be rigid.

  The pressure of the He-3 was part of how that was achieved, but each section of tubing also had stiff metal rods that locked magnetically into place at the flip of a switch. Thankfully, the tanker’s autopilot was sufficient for station-keeping purposes. The alignment between the ships had to be precise.

  Under normal circumstances, the hoses could be jettisoned by the ship being refueled in case of emergency. His engineers had made certain that was no longer possible. If the carrier tried to jettison the refueling tubes, they’d jam in place.

  Of course, the things weren’t strong enough to actually keep the big ship in place, but they would buy the boarders another fifteen or twenty seconds before the carrier’s engines pulled the massive ship loose from the tanker.

  That might not sound like much, but when one was scurrying for cover, fifteen seconds was an eternity.

  Thankfully, once they got onto the carrier’s hull, there wouldn’t be any defensive measures waiting for them. No one expected enemy combat troops to just appear out of nowhere in deep space.

  In any kind of reasonable situation, a ship’s commander knew that they’d see oncoming enemy forces long before any kind of boarding action started. That’s why Brad’s plan even had a chance of success. No one expected it.

  If the enemy ship had cameras watching the fuel lines, they’d almost certainly be placed close to the ship itself. After all, what they were really looking for were leaks or some other kind of mechanical failure.

  With that in mind, Saburo and his people got about three-quarters of the way across and then let go of the hoses. The small reservoir each suit had to generate thrust was more than sufficient to get them safely to the carrier with plenty of reserve to spare.

  Brad dragged himself along the hose he’d chosen with ease. He’d long before mastered working in zero gravity. In fact, none of his people seemed to be out of practice. He made a mental note to mention that in their files. All their extra training had paid off.

  His anxiety calmed the closer he got to the location where they were jumping for the carrier. He’d just about decided this was actually going to work when the hose flexed under his hands.

  For a moment, he thought someone ahead of him had used their legs to jump off and sent a ripple down the hose, but it wasn’t going to be that easy. The rear of the carrier lit up as its engines came online. It was trying to tear free.

  “Heads up!” he snapped over the general com. “They’re onto us. All entry teams move. Don’t wait for us. Go! Go! Go!”

  Someone on the carrier must’ve seen something that they shouldn’t have. That spoke to a higher level of professionalism than Brad would’ve expected. Once more, the Cadre had surprised them.

  Brad gathered himself to get free of the hose, but the r
ipple going through its length suddenly doubled. With a jerk he could feel through his gloved hands, it rebounded from somewhere behind him. This particular hose had probably just snapped free of the tanker.

  Without waiting to find out if his guess was correct, Brad engaged his thrusters and sought to get clear of the hose.

  Unfortunately, it had the jump on him. The hose curled in on itself and snapped forward, sending Brad hurtling toward the carrier’s hull. He instantly reversed his suit’s thrust but doubted it would be enough to offset all the momentum the hose had just imparted to him.

  He didn’t have time to look and see how many other people were in dire straits. He’d find out soon enough. They could pick up those who missed the carrier after the fight was over.

  From her cursing, Brad suspected that Falcone was one of those people.

  “Falcone, what’s your status?” he asked.

  “I’m screwed,” she snarled. “That damned hose just sent me toward the asteroid. The carrier is going to be moving too fast for me to catch up. Get them, Madrid. Don’t waste this chance.”

  “Trust me when I say that I’ll capture this ship or die trying. Hang on until we can come back for you.”

  With alarming rapidity, the carrier grew larger in front of him. He flipped over and aligned his legs with a clear spot. This was going to be a significant impact.

  It came faster than he’d expected, too. Brad rebounded off before his magnetic boots could clamp on. While he hadn’t broken a leg, he was going to be walking funny for a while.

  In his rush, he completely lost track of where he was supposed to go. He had some of his troopers in sight, already on this carrier, so he’d follow them.

  It turned out the group he was following was the one directly under Saburo’s command. He recognized the Colonel’s vacuum armor from some of the artwork he’d added to spice it up.

  Neither Brad or Saburo minded a little bit of individualization. So long as it didn’t damage discipline. Besides, Brad thought the art was beautiful.

  The etchings along the stretches of armor were in the Japanese style and showed samurai warriors in battle. Brad wasn’t certain who Saburo had hired to create the art, but it looked original.

  Saburo’s teams had zeroed in on a personnel lock toward the forward half of the carrier. His men were already placing breaching charges around it to gain rapid entry.

  Brad sighed in relief when his boots clamped on to the carrier’s hull. He’d been worried that it might slip away before he got back to it. That was probably an unreasonable worry, but it was still relief.

  He hadn’t had a chance to take a single step when he felt vibration through the hull. A glance overhead showed the tanker coming apart as mass-driver rounds tore into it.

  Saburo had seen it as well. “Well, there goes our ride. I suppose we’ll have to make sure we don’t walk home.”

  “Charges are ready,” Orlosky said.

  “Blow it,” Brad ordered.

  The troopers all faced away from the lock, and a thump rattled the hull.

  Brad turned back and saw the exterior hatch sailing away on a jet of leaking air. They’d ruptured the inner door. That might make access more difficult, but they didn’t have a choice. It was do-or-die time.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The breaching team slapped a temporary airlock over the gaping, air-spewing hole in the side of the carrier. There wasn’t room enough inside it for everyone to fit, so the initial forces would have to secure a beachhead inside the carrier.

  Brad kept a wary eye on the tanker as it came apart over their heads. The He-3 it contained wasn’t explosive in and of itself, but it was stored at high pressure. That, coupled with the mass-driver rounds drilling through the hull, made for quite a show.

  Fragments large and small were spinning away from the doomed ship in every direction. Even though the carrier was opening the distance between it and the tanker with every moment, plenty of those bits and pieces were colliding with the warship.

  Including a few somewhat sizable fragments.

  Something that resembled a hull plate took out an auxiliary communications array less than twenty meters from the airlock with a crash that Brad felt through his boots. That shot debris in every direction.

  Something caromed off the top of Brad’s helmet before he could duck. He listened closely in case it had fractured his protective armor, but heard no indication of leaking air. Dammit, that was far too close.

  While he came out of the impact fine, the portable airlock did not. It now sported half a dozen holes small and large across its surface and was doing nothing to slow the loss of the carrier’s atmosphere.

  “Cut it loose,” he ordered. “We’ll just have to deal with any airtight doors once we get inside.”

  The mercenaries quickly unsealed the airlock and cast it away. The amount of air coming out of the damaged lock was significantly higher now. Apparently, the first group of troops had been forced to cut the airlock’s interior door the rest of the way open.

  Rather than fight the air rushing out, they waited for the flow to stop on its own and then headed in as quickly as they could.

  The corridor just inside the carrier reminded Brad of his visits aboard various Fleet vessels. That shouldn’t be shocking, he supposed. It wasn’t as if the Cadre was going to redo the paint after they hijacked the ship. Decorating wasn’t their strong suit.

  Saburo was already moving his troops toward where they suspected the bridge and pilot control for the drones was located. It was critical that they stop the enemy from using those weapons against his ships.

  By now, the mass-driver slugs that Bound by Law had fired earlier should have impacted the Cadre destroyer. If they’d caught it flat-footed, that ship was now a floating mass of wreckage in much the same condition as the tanker. The rest of his ships would be firing torpedoes.

  If they weren’t lucky, his ships had just revealed themselves and were going to be in for an exceptionally tough fight.

  Being trapped inside the carrier, Brad would have no insight into what was going on around them until they secured the ship. So, he supposed he’d best get busy doing exactly that.

  There were no signs of Cadre pirates around them, but that was only to be expected. Once the airlock started leaking air, the vacuum alarms would’ve begun screaming and every person in the area would’ve headed for the nearest airtight door or suit.

  Anyone trapped in a cabin by the loss of pressure wouldn’t be a threat. They couldn’t go anywhere.

  That didn’t mean that mobile defenders weren’t headed their way. Brad expected to run headfirst into a buzz saw. The Cadre had to stop them from seizing the bridge and Engineering. If they didn’t, this fight was going to end a lot more quickly than the pirates wanted.

  “I have a deck map,” somebody said over the command com. “One of those ‘you are here’ kind of maps. I’m sending it to everyone.”

  The overlay in Brad’s HUD showed a map off to the side. He enlarged it long enough to get a feel for how the ship was laid out. The dot that indicated the viewer’s location was toward the aft of the ship, so he knew the finder hadn’t been one of his people.

  That didn’t keep him from locating where they were probably standing. He might be off by a deck or two, but the bridge was somewhere aft of their location and in toward the centerline of the carrier.

  “This is Madrid,” he said over Saburo’s command link. “Somebody get me a deck number.”

  “I passed one inside the lock, sir,” Orlosky said. “We’re on deck seven.”

  A few moments of examining the map told Brad that they needed to be on deck nine. “Find a way to get down two decks. The bridge is somewhere toward the center of the ship and aft of our current location. If I’m right, the drone control area won’t be too far away.”

  “This is fire team six,” a voice said over the general channel. “We found the drone launchers. They’re empty. It looks like the enemy has launched.”
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br />   Now the clock was really ticking.

  Saburo urged his people on and they quickly found a stairwell leading down. It was unguarded on this level because of the breach.

  “It looks like the airtight doors closed inside the stairwell,” the Colonel said after a quick check inside. “We can get down one level, but not two. Everyone into the stairwell and we’ll try closing this hatch to see if we can get past it.”

  It only took a minute to get everyone inside the stairwell. Brad brought up the rear and sealed the hatch behind himself. “We’re in.”

  “Working on the door,” Saburo said. “It’s locked, but I have a master key. Everyone face away.”

  The mercenary officer must’ve used a fairly small breaching charge to rupture part of the door, because the air pressure began to rapidly rise around Brad but they didn’t have to deal with any debris. Moments later, Saburo had the airtight door open.

  The mercenaries streamed through it and forced the hatch on the correct deck. They walked right into an ambush, it seemed. The sound of booming shotguns and activated mono-blades filled the air but didn’t stop any of the mercenaries from rushing forward.

  Brad was on their heels, his pistol in one hand and his deactivated mono-blade in the other.

  The pirates had the Vikings in a crossfire from behind two improvised barricades set up to the right and left in the perpendicular corridor. Some of his people were already down, but the rest were charging toward both positions, firing as they went.

  It looked as if the barriers weren’t very protective, because every shot that hit one went right through. Half the people behind them weren’t even in vac-suits, much less armored ones.

  A few of them were wearing regular body armor and carrying rifles. Those became his people’s primary targets. The shotguns were an annoyance, but they weren’t going to penetrate the mercenaries’ armored vac-suits without heavier ammunition then they’d have been carrying without specific reasons.