Windjammer: The Tradership Saga Book 1

by M J Gauntlet

  “That’s all I wanted to know,” Zax said firmly.

  Inching over to one side of their covering container. He peered over the edge to see that the pirate called Voss had made his way over to a position that was almost directly in front of him. Taking careful aim, Zax pulled the trigger of his handgun. Once again, there was the deafening retort followed by a flash of light. A small hole appeared in the side panel of the container behind which Voss was crouched. For a moment nothing seemed to happen, then the figure of the pirate appeared, he was grasping his right shoulder with a growing red stain.

  “Fuck!” A flat voice cried out. “Fall back dammit, get back to the hibernation unit! We can flush ‘em out with the heavy beam cannon stored there.”

  “Shit!” Pilar exclaimed. “If they have one of those then we are fucked. It could melt down this container into slag.”

  Just then a familiar voice sounded in Zax’s head:

  Zax, crewman Pilar is all well?

  “Windy!” Both Pilarand Zaxexclaimedsimultaneously. “You’re back!”

  Yes. It seems that I’ve been having some problems and I am currently functioning at only forty-seven percent of my operating efficiency. It appears….

  “Windy stop! We don’t have time for a systems situation report now. We are about to be in deep shit, and we need your immediate assistance,” Pilar mentally shouted, interrupting the A.I.’s complaint. “Do you have control of the contragrav field in cargo bay three?”

  As I was about to say, I have partial control of only about half of my systems. Which include communications, propulsion, and the ship wide contragrav fields.

  Zaxxion could swear that he heard a ‘huffiness’ in the A.I.’s reply.

  “Fine…fine. Right now, I’m concerned about the gravity in cargo bay three and ship’s ability to decelerate,” Pilar retorted with exasperation, “We are running out of time here!”

  What is it you would like, Pilar?

  “In about 70-seconds, I’m gonna need you to cut the gravity field in cargo bay three and simultaneously apply a ship wide decel that will last for approximately four seconds. 30 seconds after that restore gravity to cargo bay three”

  Cutting the contragrav field in that section of the ship will be tricky with my systems malfunctioning the way they are and a ship wide decel on such short notice is inherently dangerous. There is not enough time to secure loose items about the ship!

  “I’m aware of that Windy, but this is a ship wide emergency. If you can’t do what I ask there may not be a ship much longer. Contact the captain and inform her of my decel request and state that it is a dire emergency that it be approved. Then warn the rest of the crew of the decel and have them brace themselves for the maneuver to avoid injury

  The decel has been approved and will commence in ten seconds. All compartments have been notified… 10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1…decel!

  Zaxxion had been bracing himself for the decel when he felt a sharp jerk on his body. He had miscalculated the direction and force of the sudden change in aspect. He found himself abruptly floating out of cover of the shipping container into the open space! An uncovered target. Fortunately, the pirates were fairing no better. Zax got a quick glimpse of the trio, their arms flailing about before he felt a sharp tug on his trouser leg pulling him back to cover.

  “Get under cover nub, before you get your head blasted off!” Pilar growled with impatience, “Now take a peek at those assholes down there.” The now mollified Zax, gathered himself, floated over to the corner of the container, and sneaked a quick look at the pirates. They were in complete disarray! The decel maneuver had taken them completely by surprise. Each pirate was scrambling to right themselves as they found their trajectories suddenly askew!

  Pilar’s voice spoke urgently over Zax’ s com, “Zax! Quickly get over to the upper corner of the shipping container and give it a shove with all your might!”

  Zax frantically “swam” over to the edge of the container, braced his feet against the shell and extended his legs violently. Much to his dismay, he went flying violently askew while the container hardly moved at all! Waving his arms wildly to regain his balance, he glanced towards the packing crate and Pilar to see that she was nodding with satisfaction.

  “That ought to fix the bastards!” she said with a smile.

  Frowning, Zax looked back at the scene below and frowned as it appeared that little had changed. The pirates were still retreated towards the faux shipping container that contained the more powerful weapon. While two of them were attempting shift the other lose containers in an attempt to make a makeshift fort, the larger pirate was wildly gesturing and cursing at the smaller one who was still trying to maintain contact through the computer interface. The one that appeared to be the leader was still trying to access a large bulky container that was buried in the confines of the fake shipping container. The skinny pirate was continuing to lay down covering fire, but the loss of gravity made his aim all but useless.

  The leader took a quick glance back over his shoulder and refocused on clearing the crate when he suddenly bolted straight up and whipped around. He then began to wildly signal to his compadres to look towards the slowly moving container that Zax and Pilar had set in motion towards the group. Zax frowned in confusion, as it seemed that the crate headed towards the group poised little threat. Sure, it was large, but it seemed to be moving so slowly. Nonetheless the leader managed to get his crew to attempt to refocus their fire in order to change the oncoming trajectory of the massive cargo bin, to no avail. The closer the bin got towards the now massed group of pirates, the more frantic their behavior became, and it was then that Zax began to grin. It was basic physics: gravity might have been negated but not mass! Currently, megatons of mass were bearing down on the group of pirates and they had barricaded themselves behind a makeshift structure that in no way could withstand the impact. Zax looked over towards where Pilar had braced herself against the bulkhead. She was waiving at him to do likewise and to lay down covering fire to keep the pirates pinned behind their flimsy fort. Grabbing a handhold to brace himself against the recoil, he fired one of his rounds towards the massed pirates, although the shot was wildly askew the effect was immediate. The entire group immediately ducked down behind their barricade. The only pirate not included in the assembly of attackers was the lone computer hacker that was huddled up against the far bulkhead, cowering in fear while still desperately trying to hack the A.I..

  The leader quickly abandoned his attempt to redirect the path of the incoming crate and focused on freeing up whatever was in the black container at his feet. With a final jerk, he was able to free what was a large beam cannon. Turning towards the now impending crate, he began to plug in huge power conduits from the insides of the fake cargo container. It was a race between time. The power conduits began to glow, and the heavy-duty cannon began to charge, as row of blue lights began to pulse along the weapon’s sides. The weapon glowed brighter…but it was too late!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “Skipper!” Gomez said tersely, “Pilar has just requested a ship wide four second decel through Windjammer’s com system that has just come back online. She lists it as a ship-wide emergency! Case Omega.”

  Case Omega was the ship-wide code for intruder alert. Somewhere the Windjammer had been boarded! Well things were beginning to make sense.

  “Request granted! As a matter of fact, this will work out just fine! Number One, I want you to void air out of airlock 6B at the same time as the decel and rotate the ship thirty degrees. As the ship yaws, open gun bays seven and eight, but make it look like a malfunction.”

  “Aye-aye Captain. Decel in ten seconds from…now!” “Make sure that Brax down in engineering is advised.

  Don’t want anything flying round down there!”

  “Understood Captain, everything is locked down tight here! Let her rip!” came Brax’s growling reply.

  10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1… decel! Windjammer’s dispas
sionate voice intoned.

  The tradership jerked and skewed thirty degrees to port. Suddenly several things at once happened:

  Two portside hatches suddenly voided atmosphere, as their door seals ruptured, and they hung open to space. There was an apparent sporadic firing of the positioning jets which moved the massive tradership into a jerky, erratic orbit along its long axis. The Windjammer was tilted head over tail in a long spiral turn. Anyone observing the sudden maneuvers would have to assume that the ship was completely out of control. It was exactly the signal the boarding piratical ships were looking for, as they quickly closed in towards the ‘wounded’ vessel.

  With the plethora of apparent malfunctions happening aboard the obvious stiction tradership, none of the approaching marauder vessels paid any attention to the now open weapon bays, a poor error on their part. Two of the ships had just deployed their grappling lines and were latching on to the wildly gyrating ship. The third larger ship was still approaching cautiously from the rear.

  “Captain, I don’t have a weapon’s lock on either closing vessel. I’m gonna have to eyeball it,” Branda said, from her weapon’s station.

  “Goddamn it, woman. Take your best shot! We be in the shit can here!” Captain Ahosi snapped back.

  Two of the pirate craft had just latched onto the Windjammer’s tumbling hull, when one of them crossed in front of one of the open weapon’s hatch. A burst of blue green light shot from the port as the energized rail gun spat out tracer fire interspersed with energized three- meter-long titanium slugs.

  The unfortunate vessel’s hull was not rated to withstand the stress, it tore apart like metal foil in the wind. There was a brief flash of light followed by a ‘puff’ as both atmosphere and bodies spilled into space.

  The second approaching vessel had just grappled onto the tradership, when its partner was disintegrated into scrap. In a desperate attempt to avoid the same fate as its companion, it tried to skew sidewise away from the death spewing open port. They might have made it too, if they had not forgotten to disengage their grapple which acted like a fishing line and yanked them tumbling back towards the ship’s bulkhead as the line snapped. The hapless ship ricochet off the side of the ship and headed off into the black of space. Either someone was still able to take control of the craft or the automatic computer kicked in because its after jets abruptly ignited. It took off in an erratic flightpath as it skewed in what looked like a jig-saw pattern of evasion. Too late…

  As the escaping vessel cleared the starboard side of the twisting Windjammer, one of its missile tubes rotated clear. There was a bright flare as a slim ship to ship missile cleared the missile bay. The pirate boarding craft leaped through a series of avoidance maneuvers (it must have been under human command after all) but to no avail. Within thirty seconds the thin white trail of the missile, met the red dot of the pirate ship and there was a white puff of light then nothing.

  “Damn…that’s twenty K down the drain…” Came the gruff voice of Captain Ahosi. Now will someone please tell me what the FUCK has happened to my ship!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Captain Ahosi stood behind Gomez who was holding a shoulder mounted plasma rifle on the prisoners. Both Pilar and Zax stood to the rear of the cargo bay’s airlock, watching the beleaguered group of pirates who stood between themselves and the coldness of space.

  “Alright, somebody tell me what the hell just happened to my ship,” Ahosi said.

  Pilar stepped forward; her own gun leveled on the pirates. “Skipper it appears that we have run across a band of very ingenious pirates. It they have done what was considered impossible, they have found a way to spoof the readouts of a waypoint warehouse so that it would accept a rogue cargo bin that would transmit the signature of a legitimate shipping firm.”

  Zaxxion noticed that the small pirate at the end of row straightened up slightly at Pilar’s statement. Now that he was closer to the pirate, he saw that to his surprise it was a young girl. She could not have been more than a few years younger than himself!

  “The com signature of the bogus bin has been altered so that anyone reading it will get a readout of whatever this group wanted it to say. In this case, it indicated that this container contained six mature mutant bovine and three swineporks in cryo status. The signature also stated that it was an urgent order with a bonus attached for quick delivery in system.”

  “Very sneaky, broadcasting that would make it a prime cargo haul for any ship headed in system,” Captain Ahosi said, nodding her head in repentant admiration.

  “Yeah, pretty clever,” Pilar said. “The rest was easy. Once the cargo bin had been loaded. All the raiders had to do was wait for an hour or two for things to settle down on board, then open the cargo bin. The first thing they would then do would be to flood the ventilation system with a nerve gas, and once the crew had succumbed, the ship would be theirs!”

  A harsh voice interrupted Pilar.

  “Can we get on with it? Or are you going to talk us to death!” the pirate known as Krag snarled, shaking his bound hands and jerking the other pirates who were linked to him.

  Bringing up his plasma rifle, Gomez ‘grip tightened as he centered it on the large pirate.

  “Say the word skipper, and I’ll fry this bastard right now!” he snarled.

  “No...” Ahosi responded calmly, “I don’t feel like scrubbing the airlock of his blood. But for once I agree with the pirate.” Reaching into the pocket of her tunic, she pulled out four green tablets. I’m sure you know what these are,” she said, opening her palm and showing the tablets to the captives. “You don’t deserve it, but nonetheless I’m making the offer.”

  Each of the persons reacted different to the offer. The one that Zax believed to be the leader of the boarding party, reluctantly took one of the little pills with a wry grin. The second pirate in line hesitantly took one of the pills with a nervous snatch, his hand shaking violently. The third pirate, the one called Krag, grabbed one with a defiant sneer. As Ahosi reached the final figure in the cue, Zax stepped forward and touched her arm, startled she turned towards him her eyes full of questions.

  “Skipper, I think that you should hold off on this last pirate. I have a question as to whether or not she should be included in the group.”

  Ahosi paused and stepped back, clinching the last tablet in her hand. Turing to look Zax in his eyes, she glared at him with a disapproving frown.

  “Zax I realize that she looks too young, but…”

  She never got to finish her sentence, as two things happened so quickly that there was no time for anyone to react.

  With a sudden vicious growl, the pirate called Krag yanked the tether linking him to the young captive, pulling her violently next to him and looped it around her throat.

  “You ain’t fuckin’ getting out of this one little princess!” Krag declared, with a vicious sneer on his lips.

  As swift as Krag was someone was quicker!

  Krag was a massive man over 2 meters tall. His arms were thick bands of muscle, while his chest and abdomen were loops of what looked like coils of scarred sinew. But before he could constrict those muscles to fulfill his deadly purpose, something totally unexpected happened…

  Moving almost faster than the eye could follow, Zax’s left arm shot out and struck the massive man in his solar plexus. It should have made no impact on that abdomen, but to everyone’s astonishment, including Krag’s, Zax’s fist encountered that mass of muscle and then continued to disappear up to his forearm! But before anyone could react, his right arm came up with a lightening quick upper cut that smashed into the startled pirate’s lower jaw!

  There was a crunching sound, as the bone snapped and both blood and teeth flew from the stunned pirate’s mouth. The man sagged backwards, releasing his strangled captive. Zax had moved so fast that it took seconds before anyone in the airlock reacted. By the time everyone could respond, Zax had already cut the restraining cord linking the female pirate from the rest of the group an
d pushed her out of the airlock and over to a side alcove where she collapsed into a bedraggled heap.

  “I’m sorry Captain, but if you will just hear me out, I think that we should listen to this girl’s story before we chuck her out the airlock.”

  Ahosi was just recovering from what she had just witnessed, and like the others was more than a little stunned. Gathering herself she nodded curtly to Zax, then tuned to address the remaining pirates.

  “I suggest you use the ampules I provided…Now!”

  Without another word, she slammed the inner airlock close button. The alarm sounded as the gate slowly closed. The three prisoners each reacted in their own way: The first one, looked at the pill in his hand and slowly put it in his mouth as he turned to face the outer airlock door. The second pirate began to shake so much that he dropped his pill and began a frantic search to find it on the airlock floor. The third one called Krag, leaned against the outer door moaning from his injury as he slowly put the pill in his destroyed mouth.

  Without looking at the three, Ahosi paused a few seconds before she pushed the quick void button on the panel above her head and the airlock outer doors flew open. There was a wailing alarm then silence. Zax could feel the dull ‘thud’, as there was a muffled ‘whoosh’, due to the escaping air rushing into the void carrying the living contents of the airlock with it. After taking a deep breath, the captain suddenly rounded around to stare Zax straight in the eyes.

  “Listen to me closely Zax, right now I’ve got a ship to get back into good running order so I can’t get to you now, but, when we are done, I want to see you in my wardroom.” She then swiveled to face Abrams, who was standing next to the young pirate.

  “Abrams I want you to escort the prisoner to the brig then hotfoot it back to engineering and run a complete diagnostic on all systems. Is that clear?”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  “Pilar, I want you to take Zax here and clean up the cargo bay, you two have just made a shamble of and clean away all debris. Get those loose cargo bins strapped down and see what you can salvage from the pods that are too wrecked to be serviceable. When you are done, eject the garbage into space. After you are done and if there are no other jobs that you can do aboard ship, then I want you to report to my wardroom. Is that clear mister?!”