Windjammer: The Tradership Saga Book 1

by M J Gauntlet

a system’s wide shut down.

  “Shit…shit! Windy is there anything we can do?” Pilar exclaimed out loud. Zax wondered why the verbal cry, then realized that the A.I.’s internal communications were being compromised but the external speakers were connected at a different interface that had not yet been infected.

  Almost immediately, the speakers in the companionway came to life with Windy’s voice: “I am deploying anti-viral countermeasures, but the cyber assault is extremely aggressive. If only I had a way to suspend the intrusion even for a couple of cycles, I would be able to ward off this attack. Unfortunately, the viral attack is self-replicating and each time I employ an anti-viral attack, it duplicates and leaps ahead of each decision gate protocol I employ.”

  Zax had just started to step into the passageway, then froze in mid step as what the A.I. said registered in a faraway part of his mind. A fragment of a long- gone conversation popped into his head “…the ship’s A.I. experienced an error in her internal clock… It slowed down by a fraction of nanoseconds…. It affected her decision gate protocols…” The last time he had heard those words was when…

  Pilar was anxiously looking at Zax, who seemed to be frozen half in and half out of the portal to his cabin. “Zax! Snap out of it! Now is not the time for you to go space happy on me. I’m gonna need your help right now. I have an idea of where this attack is coming from, but it is going to take the both of us to tackle the problem if I’m right.”

  Zax blinked twice and seeing the stress in Pilar’s face, shook his head quickly to clear his thoughts. Nodding once to her, he stepped into the corridor looking along the walkway towards the far hatch. “Pilar, go down and secure the junction, I’m gotta get something that might help.” Pilar gave him a strained look, then ran towards the cargo bay accesses. Stepping back into his room, Zax touched the release tab on his upper torso and the skin suit immediately loosed around his right shoulder. Slipping his ungloved hand between the suit and his armpit, Zax deftly pushed out the orb that was nestled beneath the skin flap.

  I don’t know if this will help or make things worse but I’ve gotta try something, he thought to himself as he placed the shiny spheroid on the underside of the table in his room. As before, it adhered there as if it were glued to the surface. Without further thought, Zax resealed his skin suit and reattached the gauntlets. Looking down the passageway, he saw Pilar down ship standing guard at the airlock junction leading towards the cargo bays. In three bounds, he was standing at her side with his antique firearm in his hands.

  Up on the bridge, Captain Ahosi and the bridge crew were frantically fighting a losing battle.

  “Engineering…report!” Ahosi shouted out loud, but only static answered her. “God Damn it Abrams…report!” There was a moment of silence that seemed to stretch on forever until the overhead speakers crackled to life.

  “Abrams here, captain,” the steady voice of the engineer sounded overhead, “sorry for the delay, but I’ve had to reroute communications through the hardwire lines since Windy has been compromised. Currently engineering is sealed up tight, but I’ve got my hands full trying to manually balance the fission and fusion plants without help from the A.I. Right now, I’m holding down the fort, but I’m afraid that if we cannot get Windy back online within the next hour, I’m gonna have to shut down both plants or we will go ‘boom’ rather quickly.”

  “Understood Abrams, we are doing the best we can up here but to be honest, things don’t look good. I will keep you updated,” Ahosi retorted in disgust, then she barked out a second command.

  “Tactical report.”

  “The three bogies are still on our tail skipper. They are sitting out there out of weapons range, just waiting,” Trina said, not taking her eyes from her display.

  “What are they waiting for?” Gomez queried, “they must see that we are partially incapacitated and are sitting ducks.”

  “Yeah, they can see that we are in trouble, but I’m betting that they are going to make sure that the Windjammer is completely disabled. They don’t want to blow holes in their booty if they can avoid it. They want to take us intact, so they are going to make sure that we have been completely overcome by the gas attack and that the A.I. has been deactivated,” Brax responded from his console.”

  “Yeah, I figure it the same way Brax. They can see that the ship has lost some control of its propulsion system and are waiting for a complete shut down,” Ahosi said, with a nod. “How’s it coming with the A.I.? Any improvement in Windy’s viral counter-measures?”

  “No. I figure that we have only ten or twelve minutes before total shutdown or, worse, viral take over.” Brax’s fingers were a blur above his console as he tried to back up the A.I.’s counter measures. “She’s putting up a good fight, but the infection is too aggressive for her current anti-viral …wait…Captain something is happening…” Brax’s fingers paused above the holographic keyboard then flashed into action. “Captain… the worm seems to have been halted! An anomaly has suddenly appeared, and it has affected both Windy and the virus, but she is adjusting to it far quicker than the worm.”

  “Does it look like Windy will be functional again or has the damage to her systems been too extensive?”

  “I can’t say Skipper, but she’s putting up one hell of a fight. It all depends on the nature of the anomaly. But if I were to guess, I’d say that if the disturbance lasts for too long both the virus and Windy will be wiped. Although, it would take much longer to erase the A.I.’s memory banks than the programing of that virus,” Brax replied.

  “What systems are going to be back online first Brax?”

  “Propulsion, communications, then finally weapons, Captain.”

  “Good! Give me a heads up when weapons will be online again.”

  “Captain, propulsion just came back. Do you want me to correct our yaw and put some distance between us and the bogies?”

  “No Gomez. I don’t want them to get any idea that our systems are coming back. Not yet! I want the bastards to think that their plan is working, so that they will come in fat and lazy.”

  “Well, whatever is going to happen, it better be within the next hour or I’m afraid that what is affecting both the worm and Windy will cause irrevocable damage,” Brax said tensely.

  “Amen to that, number one,” Ahosi said reverently.

  Both Zaxxion and Pilar found themselves moving quietly down the corridor leading to cargo bay three. They had sealed themselves tightly in their skinsuits and both were carrying weapons. Pilar wielded a muon pulse blaster, while Zax held the unwieldly ‘firearm’ left to him by his father. When they reached the cargo bay door, Zax reached for the release handle but Pilar roughly pushed his hand away. Putting her finger to the outside of her faceplate, she made a ‘shushing’ motion and pulled Zax further down the passageway. When they reached the end of the corridor, she grasped Zax’s head and pulled it towards her so that their faceplates were touching.

  “Zax, don’t use the helmet’s com system. I don’t think that whoever is in there is monitoring the frequency but I’m taking no chances,” Pilar said, in a voice that was muffled by the plasticine of the helmet. “If I’m right then whomever is attacking the ship is behind that hatch. I’m betting that the moment that door is opened, there will hail of blaster fire coming through it. We must get in through the secondary hatch. Follow me.”

  With that, Pilar quickly moved to her left and grasped one of the sanctions that held the cargo bay section in place on the Windjammer and began to climb. Zax likewise followed her up into the superstructure. Aided by her diminutive size, she quickly outpaced him, was impatiently waiting for him at a recessed hatch and was waiving her arms frantically for him to hurry up and join her. Panting slightly, Zax reached the small cul-de-sac between the bulkhead and the cargo hatch, where Pilar immediately pulled him towards her, helmet to helmet.

  “C’mon Zax move your ass! I don’t know how much time we have, so we gotta take some chances. If the intruders have th
is hatch covered also, then we are fucked. But I doubt it. This is the access port that we pushed the cargo pod in front of when we made room for that deep space warehouse load. It should be shielded from view from the cargo bay floor, but they still might have it covered.”

  “Who might have it covered? What the fuck is happening in there?”

  “Don’t you get it? Four hours ago, we onload cargo from a deep space warehouse that was supposed to contain livestock for in system transit. Suddenly, the ship’s ventilation system is compromised. Something that can only be done from inside the ship. It doesn’t take a genius to guess that what was in that cargo container wasn’t livestock! My guess is that pirates were somehow able to spoof Windy’s scanners into believing that the pod contained livestock when it actually was a ‘trojan horse’.”

  “What’s a ‘trojan horse’?” Zax said in confusion.

  “No time to explain, kid. We gotta get this hatch open and try and stop whatever it is they are doing in there. It’s gonna take a minute or so to manually get this open. When I do, I want you to try and squeeze in behind the cargo pod and head towards the left. I’ll follow you and go to the right.”

  Pilar pushed him away, turned and grasped a service panel next to the hatch. With a grunt, she pulled the plate outward and then slid it to the side. Behind the panel was a series of switches and a lever. She flipped each switch so that the red glowing indicators above it flickered green, then she grabbed the lever and began to slowly pump it up and down. A small gap appeared between the hatch and the bulkhead and slowly began to widen. There was no rush of air which meant that the cargo bay was pressurized. When the opening was about a meter in diameter, Pilar motioned for Zax to go through. Taking a deep breath, he turned sideways, ducked his head, and squeezed through the narrow gap.

  There was no hail of fire that met him, only the flat surface of a cargo container less than meter in front of his faceplate. Bracing his hands against its surface, Zax inched his way to the left corner of the pod. Barely able to turn his head, he could see behind him, Pilar moving off to the right. When he reached the edge of the container, he slowly peeked over the side and his eyes widened in surprise, seeing what was happening on the cargo bay floor twenty meters ‘below’ him.

  There were four pirates in skinsuits visible below him, their faceplates were opened as each one concentrated on a specific task. One was steadfastly guarding the main hatch to the cargo bay. A muon plasma rife trained on the entrance. A second pirate was nursing two large gas canisters of some kind. Attached to each was a flexible hose that snaked up into the ventilation ducts on the wall above the container.

  A rather beefy man was standing behind a fourth smaller man. The smaller man was frantically manipulating a virtual keyboard attached to an umbilical fiber optic cord that snaked up the bulkhead and was fastened into one of the cargo bay’s visual monitors. The larger pirate would occasionally poke the smaller one in his back with his plasma rifle or cuff him in the back of the head with his free hand while mouthing obscenities.

  “What the fuck is taking so long, shithead? You better get that A.I. down in the next fucking minute or I’m gonna spread your brains all over this cargo bay!” the large man said, with a nasty sneer.

  “I’m doing the best I can, Krag. Really, I am but something is interfering with the program. I’m trying to work around it but it’s something I’ve never seen,” replied a surprisingly soft high-pitched voice. With a start Zax realized that the smaller man was, in fact, a female, possibly a young girl.

  The man cuffed the girl in the back of her shaven head once more and grunted, “The only reason we’re keeping you from breathing vacuum is because you are supposed to be a prog wiz. You’re too young for selling and too scrawny for fucking, at least for my taste. So, if you can’t be of any use to us for hacking then what the fuck good are you? I told Jake you were a waste of good air, so if you can’t get that A.I. down I guess we’re gonna have to dump you with the rest of spacer garbage we got on this tub.”

  “Krag!” A hard voice shouted from somewhere inside the now open cargo container. A fifth pirate stuck his head out of the opening and turned to the burly man. “How the fuck do you expect her to do anything, with you slapping her around while she’s trying to work. Shut the fuck up, leave her alone and just keep an eye on her, eh?” Turning towards the man manipulating the gas containers he barked an order. “Volta! If you are done dicking around with those containers, get your ass down here and help me revive Tock, his lines are all fowled.”

  “But Joss,” Volta replied in a high-pitched whinny voice, “the cans are almost empty. Just a few more minutes and I’ll be done.”

  “Fuck that! If the crew of this tub ain’t out by now, that pissant amount ain’t gonna matter. Now get down here and help me with these lines…now!

  “Ok, ok Joss, I’m coming!”

  Zax ducked his head down, leaned his back against the cargo pod, then looked over at Pilar. To is surprise, he saw that she was leaning over the edge of the pod and taking aim at the pirate guarding the main hatch with her rifle. Her faceplate was open, and he could see a wicked grin on her lips. Raising his head above the edge of the pod, he watched as she pressed the contact switch.

  Muons are subatomic particles similar in charge to electrons but with higher mass. They were only a mathematical construct of little value until the discovery of contragrav and the ability to focus a momentary gravitation wave along a single vector. When the particles were accelerated along rifle’s chamber, their mass exponentially increased till they formed a cohesive beam of destructive energy. Traveling at the speed of light, the beam either pushed any matter such as air molecules aside or converted it into plasma. The beam struck the pirate squarely on his back and…scattered into a display of chromatic light!

  Pilar quickly ducked down as a hail of return fire peppered the bulkhead behind her. “Shit, shit…goddamn it. They are wearing fucking shielded suits! We’re fucked!”

  Zax swallowed hard, then noticed that all the return fire was concentrated at the end of the pod where Pilar lay crouched between the bulkhead and the container. Slowly he dared a peak around his corner and saw that four of the pirates were firing their weapons at where they thought their attacker was positioned. Ducking his head down, Zax reached his tool belt and withdrew the antique firearm and opened its central cylinder like Abrams had taught him. There were six flat-ended ‘cartridges’ nestled in their in their chambers. Snapping the cylinder back in place, he slowly moved his head to peek around the edge of the pod, then he brought the gun up at arm’s length and sighted along the bore as Abrams had shown him.

  “Be careful Zax, this ain’t no beam weapon. This baby has a ‘kick’. Make sure you grasp it firmly before you fire it, or it will fly back and break your nose,” the engineer had once told him.

  Cautiously, Zax tracked the nearest pirate, the one with the plasma rifle firing at the far edge of their cover and pulled the trigger. There was a loud ‘bang’ followed by a bright flash of light that exited the end of the pistol as the gun almost leaped out of Zax hand. There was an acrid smell in the air and a puff of smoke rose upwards in front of him. Leaning against the container to catch his startled breath, Zax took a quick look around the edge of the pod and saw that the pirate who was his intended target was now spread eagled against the far wall with a gaping hole in his chest. Blood was pumping out in a steady stream that was slowly diminishing as he watched. Pandemonium followed.

  The remaining pirates scrambled for cover behind several of the cargo pods and focused their fire at the end of the cargo bin where Zax was crouched. Molten pieces of the bulkhead and the container splattered down around him, as the concentrated fire began to melt away his cover. He could hear shouted curses and directions from the pirates as they tried to coordinate their fire. But during the refocused attack, Pilar had not remained quiescent. From her location on the far side of the protective container, Zax could hear the weapon’s discharge of her own pla
sma rifle. Inching around to one corner of his cover, Zax peered over the edge and saw that three of the intruders were now engaged in laying down cover fire, as they tried to move on his and Pilar’s position. The fourth pirate, the one at the keyboard, lay crouched against the far bulkhead hands covering her head.

  “Zax!” Pilar’s voice sounded over the speaker in his helmet. “Are you alright?”

  “Yes, so far,” he replied in a somewhat raspy voice.

  “Good! I thought for a moment they had picked you off,” came her relief filled voice. “What the fuck was that you did back there? What type of cannon is that thing?”

  “Something my father left me, but it only has five charges left.”

  “Shit! Do you think that you could…” Pilar’s voice shut off and was followed by a high pitched squeal, “Damn, they almost got me with that one. Got a glob of molten metal in my scalp!

  Zax peeked around the edge again and was alarmed to see that two of the pirates were attempting to flank their position, using the cargo crates as cover. The one called Craig had positioned himself off to their right, while the one called Voss was working his way around to the left. Both were firing and ducking behind their covering bins as they tried to get a bead on Zax and Pilar’s positions. It was then that Zax got an idea.

  “Pilar? What are these cargo containers made of?”

  “Huh? Zax now is not the time for a discussion of the composition of cargo crates!”

  “Dammit woman, just answer my question! We are running out of time here!”

  There was a slight pause, as Pilar got off a shot in the direction of the figure nearest to her. “The edges are made of reinforced plasticine several meters thick. The panels are composed of reconstituted long chain molecules.”

  “Is there anything in them that might go ‘boom’?” Zax asked tentatively.

  “Only in the ones marked with red panels.”