Chronicles of the 23rd Century: Hijacked

by Paul J. Fleming

  After a moment’s pause, Jacob confirmed he had access to the sensor array and his readings demonstrated that all their passengers were indeed aboard the lifeboats and it seemed the pirates who had forced themselves upon the ship were now disembarking to their vessel which was tethered alongside the liner.

  ‘Oh…wait!’ He announced quickly and adjusted his controls quickly. ‘No, there’s another signal in the reactor room. Looks like there’s a passenger down there, or maybe one of our cabin crew? I have an energy reading too.’

  ‘Can you tell what it is?’ Walker asked as he pondered on the possibility that they had left an explosive device behind them.

  ‘It’s faint, a small device I think. It’s not a weapon clip or anything like that, I have the modulation readings here.’

  Walker moved to his station and glanced over Jacob’s shoulder at the readout on his display. The modulation of the energy signal made him suddenly go cold, especially as it was the only signal and life-form reading present at that location.

  ‘It’s a tag,’ he muttered softly under his breath before spinning about and running as fast as he could, determined to reach the reactor chamber as fast as physically possible.

  6 Ranger No More

  Despite his eagerness to reach the drive room with all possible haste, the path Walker chose took him past the airlock which the pirates had used to make their entry onto the liner and he skidded to a halt by the control panel set aside the inner airlock door.

  Quickly examining the control before him, he made a few quick adjustments and ensured that the liner’s clamps were adjusted to manual release only with a few further tweaks to secure the inner door from being opened from within the airlock. It meant that the small scout ship which had assaulted them was forced to go along for the ride for the time being, although the crew on board could spend time burning through the securing clamps to free themselves without major structural damage to their own vessel.

  For his purposes, it meant they were not going anywhere until he had a chance to assess the situation and state of the liner’s own drive unit. If needed he could try and board that ship to provide an escape route for the crew on the bridge, with the hope they could alert the necessary authorities to intercede and prevent the liner from carrying out it’s plunge into the heart of the Martian detection grid around the Earth.

  Yes, he would have a boat of rather unwilling pirates to deal with, but as things stood he wanted to keep all his options open even if they seemed like awkward long shots.

  ‘Agent Walker?’ Jacob’s voice resounded over the ship-wide announcement system. ‘If you can hear me, the life boats are about to launch from their bays along the length of the liner!’

  Almost on cue, there were resounding repeated thuds as the capsules were set free from their mooring clasps and their micro-drive units fired to send them away from the liner, their on board computers all guiding the tiny vessels on a path to regroup at a safe distance where they could cluster together and await retrieval by the company rescue vessels, which would have more than likely already been alerted to some mishap with one of their vessels.

  Walker turned his attention back to his rapid pace towards the drive room, descending stairwells down beyond the passenger cabins and to the lowermost level of the ship where he sprinted along the corridor only to halt with his acquired pistol raised in readiness as his eyes took in the sight within the drive room. The prisoner they had brought aboard the liner only a day before now sat cross legged and rocking slightly as he sobbed over the downed figure of his escort and protector, the young woman who had the wherewithal to speak her mind and act decisively to save Walker’s behind on more than one occasion.

  With a panicked look on his face, Oswald twisted about to glare at the new entrant to the room but gasped with opened mouthed surprise at the sight of Walker as he approached slowly, his own eyes firmly fixed on the scorched corpse of his former partner lying in the pool of her own blood.

  ‘She told me to stay put,’ Oswald offered meekly as an explanation. ‘We came in and hid over there,’ he gestured towards a large rectangular cabinet which housed control circuitry, ‘but the two who were in here disagreed and one shot the other. She tried to arrest him but some others came in and…..’ his voice faltered as his gaze drifted back to her body lying on the floor. ‘I moved her slightly, I’m sorry. She looked uncomfortable.’

  Walker did not answer.

  Slowly he slid the pistol he held into the holster on his hip, moving carefully about her legs to kneel on the opposite side from Oswald and gently reached out towards Jenner’s face, his fingers gingerly encouraging her eyelids to close before he pulled his hand back to rest upon her right shoulder.

  His eyes closed and his head tilted downwards slightly.

  Oswald was silent for a few moments, but felt himself backing away slightly as Walker opened his eyes and slowly turned to look straight at him, the intensity of the glare simply screaming with anger and fury at how events had turned out.

  ‘You were accused of hacking the Aries Mainframe. I don’t give a damn whether you did it or not; I do give a damn whether your talents match your accusation. Are you any good with computer security systems and getting round them?’

  ‘Yes,’ Oswald replied timidly. ‘I just…..understand them.’

  ‘Good.’

  Walker pulled a thin short tubular device out from his belt and pressed one end against the tag on Oswald’s leg, causing the device to deactivate and fall away as the restraining clasp opened.

  Oswald stared down for a moment and then raised his gaze to the man knelt before him. The action he had just undertaken to release a prisoner in custody was unheard of in the annals of the Ranger Corps, their ethos being not to determine guilt or innocence in the field but simply return the suspects to the courts for due processing.

  ‘If you respect what she did for you and if you are indeed a good man as I suspect you are, you’ll do your bit now. Get up to the bridge and work with a young guy called Jacob and his companions. The computer has us locked out and this ship is on course for the Hyperion monitoring station above Earth. If it hits, not only will we die but many thousands will suffer as the Martians try to clamp down and re-establish their stranglehold on one of their most prized commodities. Just tell Jacob I sent you.’

  Oswald stood slowly and turned away from Walker and his fallen partner, taking a few steps towards the door as his mind reeled at the enormity of the situation they found themselves in. Then he stopped and turned back towards Walker slightly.

  ‘Agent Walker? What about you?’

  ‘Without looking around, Walker’s voice held distinctly threatening undertones as he replied.

  ‘Those pirates are responsible for the death of a Solar Ranger in pursuit of her duties. I gave them a chance to stop and simply walk away but now they’ve gone beyond that point. No more chances, not for them.’

  He stood after retrieving Jenner’s pistol which still lay in her outstretched hand, tuning about to face the door and walking purposefully past Oswald with what the small Lunarian could only perceive as a murderous look upon his face.

  7 No More Chances

  Oswald scurried as fast as his legs would carry him, along the length of the crew quarters below decks and then upwards through the various levels towards the command level of the liner. Even though he no longer bore the tag about his ankle as Walker had seen fit to set him free, he bore a sense of duty about him to try and help as best he could under the circumstances. He was not good with a pistol thus could not help the remaining Ranger with tackling the pirates, but in light of the look upon Walker’s face as he had departed Oswald was pretty certain that was a situation he was best well clear of.

  He had only seen the events he’d recently been party to on the small screen within his domicile on Mars, depicted in the news reports which featured on the SOLnet news channel. He normally spent his off-duty rest hours indoors cycling through the investigative reports by the
intrepid teams employed by SOLnet press core, the delving reports and exposé reporting done by the likes of Simon Hunter and Mary Johannes as they were safe excitement to add colour to his routine scheduled lifestyle, but in a nice comfortable and safe way.

  He rarely mingled out of hours with his work colleagues, as he was more of an anomaly within the vast halls of the Aries headquarters, being a Lunarian within the immense number of Martian workers who toiled long hours to maintain the intricate systems of the corporate beast, to monitor all the financial aspects and carry out the whims of the ruling Lords and Ladies present within the ruling hierarchy of the Martian social structure. There was a level of aspersion cast upon his heritage by his peers; ridicule and derision for he had earned his place due to his talents and skills with computer systems and thus was only one of a very few ‘aliens’ within the system which was normally reserved for those of Martian blood.

  There were many times he wished he had the head for finance, and to follow his own father into the banking and stock market sector on Luna as his brothers and sisters had, but every time his father had sat down to run through the finer points of his work Oswald had nodded and grunted in the right places whilst his mind was elsewhere.

  There were positions on Luna which he had accepted with glee which took advantage of his inherent skills with technological systems, but his big chance came as he worked within the systems of the Martian Consulate and purely by chance came to the attention of Lord Arundel, who took him under his wing and returned him to Mars to be employed within the Family Arundel offices to maintain the security about their data clusters and respond to incursion attempts. Information, and therefore data, is of vital importance within the cut and thrust corporate nature of the Martian economic beast. He took great pride in his work and position of trust but his family were less than supportive, seeing his work as more menial than that of a financier or stockbroker.

  Oswald was effectively alone in his endeavours, and therefore an easy target for those who had put the blame upon him for the crimes he had been accused of.

  As he reached the top of the stairwell and made his way to the bridge, he sorely desired to be sat within the family home nestled safely within the mid level of Tranquillity Dome on Luna with his father droning on about his latest endeavours, or even safe and secure within his domicile in the worker habitation levels of Coprates Chasm on Mars, tending to his little bonsai tree whilst enjoying another thrilling in depth report from the reporters in the field.

  Crossing the threshold onto the bridge, his eyes scanned the occupants for a brief moment before he ventured further in.

  ‘Excuse me?’ He croaked out timidly as the five crewmembers busied themselves at the various stations on the bridge, their voices calling out status reports and results of their efforts to wrest ever the merest level of control back from the on board computer system. He could hear panic in their voices as they went about their endeavours feverishly.

  There was a wild dream he had enjoyed on more than one occasion after watching the exploits of those on SOLnet, which was to be the hero of the hour, to be the one who stepped in to avert the crisis and be lauded and praised by those about him as he charismatically received their adulation and then moved on to the next dastardly problem to help others. As he stood watching the movements of the crew and listening to their words, he realised that here was a situation where his talents we desperately needed. Here was a chance to step up and live that dream, to be the hero he had imagined in that wild escapade within his unconscious mind and save the day.

  All he had to do was get their attention. That was the hurdle that presented itself and stood between him and his dream. After much practice at trying to slip by unnoticed so as to avoid the derision and ridicule of those about him, now he had to stand up and make them take notice.

  Summoning up every ounce of courage he had within his small frame, he took a few deep breaths.

  ‘I said Excuse Me! Agent Walker sent me up here to work on your computer…..’

  Although his voice had started off strong, he found it diminishing as five pairs of eyes diverted from their task and turned towards him, regarding the newcomer in their midst with raised eyebrows and a certain level of suspicion.

  ‘…to work on your computer and try to regain control. I’m looking for Jacob?’ He summoned up enough courage under scrutiny to complete his announcement.

  ‘Good to meet you Oswald,’ a young man offered after a moment of silence as the others turned back to their work. ‘If Walker sent you up here then he must believe you can help us.’

  The young man stepped away from his console and moved over to the Lunarian, his hand extended in greeting which Oswald grasped and shook with a certain level of relief. This was his moment. His time to be that hero.

  Walker retraced his steps towards the airlock which he had manually locked down, his thoughts mulling over the adventures he had been through with Jenner at his side.

  There were other faces too, of Tomas, Michaels, Parnell and nameless others he had fought alongside during the war years. All in the name of bringing some sort of order and justice to the Solar community, all seemingly to no avail as events persistently proved to him that the fractious nature of the Solar system respected no one and nothing.

  While he strived to abide by a code of conduct, those he sought had no such reservations as they moved with the tides of chaos and, more often than he cared to remember at that very moment, this imbalance had cost the lives of good and true men and women both in the service of authority and those unfortunate innocents who were simply accountable as attrition in the ongoing struggle.

  No more.

  Without releasing the locking mechanism on the docking clamps, he released the inner airlock door and reactivated the control panel set within before stepping through the portal.

  If he had judged it correctly, there were only a few pirates who had boarded the liner and the ship which was tethered alongside was supporting his estimation as it’s crew and passenger complement was possibly no more than twenty at full capacity. This was quite clearly a very precise hit and run strike operated by a small group, but the results could prove devastating to countless thousands.

  The inner door closed in his wake and with a quick check that the umbilical was at standard pressure, he opened the outer door and began to cross the short distance towards the outer door of the small scout vessel. It was these moments when he was most vulnerable, as should his advance be monitored then a stray blast from the ship-borne weaponry would put an end to his efforts very quickly, or at the least may compromise his environment to the result of making his last few moments in this life very unpleasant.

  Ahead of him the outer hatch of the scout vessel began to swing open, presenting him with his first challenge to his new found direction in his life. After everything he still found himself compelled to issue a warning challenge, to abide with his Ranger Corps morals and present the target with a choice. It was only the most recent memory of Jenner lying in the pool of blood, the repeated blasts from energy weapons which had so cruelly ended her life leading him to dismiss any such notion and the pistol he held tightly in his right hand raised quickly, his finger squeezing the trigger and the energy bolt shooting forth to pierce the flesh of the individual who stepped out from the vessel before him.

  With a surprised squeal the man twisted and fell.

  Quickly Walker approached the outer door of the scout vessel, ready for any accomplice to the downed individual to emerge firing blindly at the aggressor but there were no more present within the airlock. He kicked the body over and out of the way of the outer door, the pistol still strapped within the man’s holster and a tool belt strapped about his waist. Quite obviously he was heading over to try and release the clamps which Walker had locked from inside the liner.

  Walker entered the ship and keyed the outer door to close, preparing himself as the system made a check on the environmental pressure and released the inner door, which all
owed him to exit into the main corridor which ran fore and aft of his position along the length of the small ship.

  Quickly deciding on a course of action, Walker turned and made his way aft towards the engine compartment.

  He had two pistols with him and so could deal out a tremendous amount of damage but within these close confines it would be difficult to avoid an assault by the remaining crew. However, if he were to secure the drive room and disable the engines of the ship then the pirates were trapped alongside the liner, heading for the orbital platform above Earth and potentially urging them to deviate the liner from it’s destructive course.

  The lack of obstruction to his progress lent confirmation to his theory that there were only a small number of pirates aboard the vessel, most probably now concentrating their numbers within the reactor room and the bridge in their efforts to compose a solution to free themselves.

  His arrival at the hatch which led through to the reactor chamber caused him to pause momentarily to compose himself before launching through and catching the three crewmembers within unawares, his first two shots squarely slicing the left arm of the nearest man clear away from his torso, the following shots interrupting the anguish and cries he began to emit as he fell to the floor.

  His companions responded with quite apparent panic as the safety of their endeavours had just been so rudely violated, their lives now quite clearly endangered by the aggressor who had quite obviously every intention of ending them as more energy bolts spat forth from the pistols he held.

  The squat bald Mercurian quickly snapped his pistol up from his holster, dropping to the floor as part of his reaction and coming to a position lying flat on his generous belly and with his pistol extended out before him, the weapon only able to emit a single shot which went wide of the mark and scorched the door frame before he too fell victim to a lance of energy piercing his left eye socket and burning through his brain, puncturing the back of his skull and continuing it’s travel onwards to dissipate against the rearmost wall of the reactor room.