An Uneasy Alliance: Book 4 of the Sentenced to War Series

by Chaney, J. N.

  “Shit. I was afraid of that. Look, we’re about to clear the engine room, so I’m going to be a little busy for the next few minutes. You start heading for the auxiliary life support control on Charlie Deck. I think the captain’s going to want you to check it out and secure it. The Nightingale’s or Taka’s engineers are going to have to use one of them if we’re going to get this thing up and running again.”

  “Roger. Good hunting.”

  “Gamay, out.”

  “You heard her. We’re shifting our mission. Diamond formation, but key on me,” Rev said.

  He gave one last look at the mess that was life support. Hopefully, the integrity of the rest of the ship would remain secure until the Navy could come in and get the secondary systems online.

  There were two auxiliary life support stations. One was forward in passenger country. The one aft was one deck up and about twenty meters aft from their position, just forward of the engine room and propulsion tubes. Rev led his team aft to Frame 112 and the interim space where they could cross to the next deck. As before, he covered the space while Gingham opened the hatch. It was empty, and they made their way through what had been crew quarters for six people. Not much was left. Mattresses, pillows, all the normal accoutrements of life had been swept clean. The hatch at the other end into the C-deck was opened, and Rev pulled himself into the Charlie Deck, where he was greeted by a crew member who was slowly twisting in the passage, a stream of black globules arced behind him.

  He was floating a few centimeters off of the bulkhead. His eyes were glassy and bulging, his mouth open. Around his nose and mouth were black bubbles that Rev knew would be bright red under normal lighting. Without an EVA suit or emergency hood, he would have had about only twenty or thirty seconds until the air was expelled from this section of the ship. Rev looked back at the interim space from which they’d just emerged. From the looks of it, the crewmember might have been inside the space. There should have been emergency hoods there, but maybe they’d been ripped away as the air rushed out. He probably emerged only as the air was lost, and he tried to reach safety. Clearly, he had tried to hold his breath while he struggled to find refuge.

  During their space training, one of the things drilled into them was that holding their breath in a vacuum was tantamount to a death sentence. The air in their lungs would quickly expand, causing embolisms that would kill within seconds. The SOP for a Marine or soldier caught in an air evacuation event was to immediately expel all the air from their lungs and keep the mouth open. A human could remain conscious for up to fifteen seconds in a vacuum and could remain alive for up to a minute or more. People caught in a vacuum could be revived even after longer than that. Hégémonie Liberté sailors had supposedly been successfully brought back after seven or eight minutes in a vacuum with no signs of permanent damage.

  The crew member’s lungs were damaged, and the embolisms in his brain would be problematic, but he might have a chance of resurrection if he could be gotten to a Class B or higher med center. That would have to wait, though. Rev recorded the space, then tried to move past the body. He barely nudged it as he tried to scoot by, and that sent the body tumbling. Rev grabbed a leg and planted his boots, activating the gecko pads. After slowly turning, he steadied himself, and with a sure push, sent the body down the very center of the passage and out of their way.

  Sorry about that, buddy. Hopefully, you’ll get scooped up in time to be brought back.

  Gingham looked with wide eyes as the body floated past him.

  “Keep moving,” Rev ordered.

  Their target was just ten meters away. The hatch was open, and Rev’s heart fell. But as he looked in, it seemed undamaged. It was half the size of the primary, but it supposedly had the ability to get the ship’s life support back online.

  Rev paused and looked back. The dead crewmember’s body had come up against the curve in the passage. Maybe the man had been holed up in life support instead and had been trying to get to what he hoped was an emergency hood in the berthing space. That would explain the open hatch.

  He shook his head. It didn’t matter now.

  Rev opened up a channel to the squad leader to report the status, but before he could speak, the SFC excitedly asked, “Where are you now?”

  “At the auxiliary—”

  “We just made entry into the engine control room and are pinned down with some crew-served beamer. You’re the closest to us. I need you to breach into the engine room aft of 126 and get the bastard off of us.”

  “Roger. On our way now.”

  “And I just got word that we’ve got ten minutes, twenty seconds now. The timeline’s been pushed up. If we don’t shut down the engines, the Taka’s going to fry the space.”

  And everyone in it at the time.

  “Understood. We’ll be there.”

  While the engines and propulsion tubes ran a good third of the ship’s length, the entrance to the engine control room was on their deck and only fifteen meters aft, but on the other side of the ship. They could get there in thirty seconds if they pushed it.

  They pushed it.

  “We’re going to have to breach the bulkhead,” Rev told the others as they reached the corridor outside the engine room.

  Then to Punch, he said, “Will PTC work here? And if so, what setting?”

  PTC was an incremental smart explosive, higher-tech and easier to employ than the D-5 cord Rev had used on Roher-104. Smart, in that it could be programmed to fit the situation, from detonating in a microsecond in an explosive blast, cutting through most metals and synthetics, to slow explosive that could move dirt or flip vehicles, or to a slow burn that could be used to cut through most materials. Incremental in that it came in rolls of tape carried by members of a squad. As much of the tape as required could be used, and tape from different rolls could be stuck together in strips from two to a hundred, the amount and shape as required for the mission. It was shock-resistant and safe, needing a small mechanical fuze to set it off.

  The bulkhead surrounding the engine room was reinforced almost to hull strength. Enough PTC could theoretically cut a planet in two, but this wasn’t theory, and Rev didn’t know if a high-speed explosion of a cut would be better.

 

  Which made sense. Rev had been leaning that way, but it was good to have Punch confirm it.

  “We’re at frame 126. Are you clear for us to breach here with an Alpha detonation?” he asked the squad leader.

  “That’s a negative on 126. There are six or seven civilians there now. Move to 128. That’s at the very back of the space, so don’t go aft any farther. And move it. We’re still pinned down by the damned beamer. Wait for an image,” Gamay said, her breath coming in gasps.

  Five seconds later, a skewed image popped into the four troopers’ displays. It wasn’t particularly clear, but it was good enough to get a picture of what was inside.

  Rev counted six pirates in view. One was manning an old-fashioned energy cannon. Old didn’t mean it wasn’t effective, however. An Oscar wouldn’t do much to reflect or stop the beam.

  Several bodies without vacsuits were scattered in the space, masking fields of fire. Four pirates were positioned where they could cover the entire control area, and one was holding eight civilians, each in what looked like emergency vac suits, which were little more than big white bags with air tanks. If they were at frame 126, that gave Rev their position in relation to the four of them.

  “Give us a heads up on the blast,” the squad leader told him.

  “Roger that. Setting the charge now.”

  “You can see what we’re up against. Akkeke, you’ve got the one on the civilians. You’re leading us in. I’ve got the one on the big cannon. Gingham and Acevedo take who you can of the rest. Remember, Sergeant Gamay and her team are behind the machinist table. Watch your lines of fire. We need to stop this and stop it now.”


  “How long do we have?” Corporal Akkeke asked.

  Rev checked the countdown display he’d started. “Nine minutes and fifteen seconds. If we don’t have the engine room secured and the drive cut, the Taka is going to disable the drive.”

  He didn’t have to remind them that if the Takagahara opened fire, chances are that everyone in the engine room would be killed.

  “Where’s Captain Chokra?” Acevedo asked.

  Rev should have spooled them into the messaging, so he didn’t have to repeat it.

  “It’s just us. Now let me set the PTC.”

  “What do I need?” he asked Punch.

 

  Rev swung his feet around and attached the geckos to the bulkhead. He started on the upper section and told Akkeke to do the lower one.

  “Watch what I’m doing,” he told Punch.

 

  The tape came out easily. He slapped the first section, pulled out the second section and put it on top of the first, then applied the final twenty-four centimeters.

  “Settings?”

 

  Rev set the detonator to the B mode and dialed it to two. He gave it ten seconds and slapped it on the PTC. He repeated it with a second detonator, synched it to the first, and as Akkeke finished his tape, he slapped that on as well.

  “Did I get everything right?”

 

  “OK, you three. Step back, uh, five meters. That should be good. But be ready.”

  He gave the squad leader the heads up, then slapped the two detonators, starting the countdown. Instead of jumping to join the others, he carefully walked and turned, ready to push off.

  The small green light shifted to rapid flashes, and Rev instinctively held his breath. The two patches silently exploded, the walls of the bulkhead bursting in. An explosion in a vacuum doesn’t propagate a shock wave, but the medium does spread out with force. Corporal Akkeke had to wait a moment before he burst into motion with Rev right on his ass.

  The jagged hole in the bulkhead wasn’t very big, barely enough for Akkeke and Rev to squeeze through. Without the shock wave, the pirates inside weren’t incapacitated, but that first blast of explosive material would have momentarily affected them. The pirate with the civilians hesitated, and Rev almost wasted the woman, but he had to trust Akkeke. His target was the pirate on the cannon. He went low, bringing Pashu up as the pirate tried to turn the cannon around. Rev almost had a clear shot with only one civilian at the edge of his line of fire. Rev twisted to hit a line of consoles, kicking out, which pushed him to where he was clear of the hostage. The pirate almost had the cannon swung around when Rev fired a single one-second pulse. The body seemed to explode in a red burst, like a sped-up holo of roses blooming.

  Rev didn’t have time to admire his work. Still moving through the space, he twisted around to find a target. The pirate watching the civilians was now dead, a line of small blood globes a lot neater than the mess that was Rev’s target. Another pirate was low, pulling himself between a line of condensers, just two meters away. Rev drew on him, but from this angle, he’d hit the civilians. Rev reacted by instinct. Pashu was more than just her weapons. She was a pretty big hunk of machine. Rev jumped forward, swinging her in an arc, trying to maintain his orientation. Corporal Cathcart, back teaching vacuum ops on Enceladus, would probably flunk him. Rev’s body rotated as he swung his IBHU. The pirate must have just caught a glimpse of Rev because he started a classic rabbit turn to face him, raising his weapon, and far more gracefully than Rev. If Rev missed, he would be open to the pirate’s shot.

  Rev didn’t miss. Pashu hit the pirate square on the head, her 145-kilogram mass driven by Rev’s augmented muscles. The projector barrel crushed the pirate’s helmet and continued on to crush the skull inside.

  Not that Rev saw that. The blow sent Rev tumbling, and he was lucky to hit the overhead feet first. He managed to attach with one gecko and stop himself.

  The fight was now “over” his head, and he had to crane his neck to see it. Four pirates were dead, and two were surrendering. None of the vac-suited civilians looked to be hurt.

  From the entrance, SFC Gamay and the four troopers from Second were emerging from behind a massive machinist’s table. He recognized Rice but not the other three, at least in their Oscars. It was good to see her alive and kicking.

  “Zip-tie those two and check the others,” Rev ordered Bingham and Acevedo. He stayed where he was for the moment. Under gravity, he was on what would be the overhead, so except for some piping and conduits, there was nothing to block his view, and he could observe the entire engine room. Rice was already moving to begin shutdown procedures.

  Rev checked the time. Only fifty-five seconds had passed. They’d completed the mission with a good cushion, and the Takagahara could stand down, at least as far as crippling the Nightingale’s Song. Rev’s warrior started to recede.

  Then fire lanced across his right shoulder.

  Rev wheeled around. A face was peering at him, trying to use one of the conduits as cover.

  The pirate must have been using the overhead to observe what was going on. Rev didn’t know why he hadn’t fired before.

  The pirate had a look of resignation. He might have realized that the ship was not going to make the jump into bubble space now. He might even know that the chances were that he faced trial and execution. He didn’t look like someone who accepted the immediacy of his death, however, and instead of aiming and firing again, he was pushing himself farther back into the maze of pipes. He fired one more unaimed shot as he tried to get away.

  Rev could have waited for his Oscar to seal the bullet hole in his shoulder. He could have fired his cannon, cooking the man. He could have called for help.

  He didn’t do any of that. He dove after the man, covering the space in one leap. The pirate looked back in horror, his eyes fixated on Pashu. He must have seen what it had done to the pirate on their cannon, or he’d seen Rev crush the other pirate’s helmet. Either way, he tried to get away in panic. He finally seemed to remember his weapon, and he brought it back around and fired . . . at Pashu, not at Rev. The round glanced off the IBHU as Rev closed the fingers around the pirate’s ankle, and bracing against a conduit, he pulled the man free like a terrier pulling a rat from a hole.

  Rev could see the man screaming in utter horror through his face shield. Rev knocked his carbine away with his right hand, sending it spinning to the deck. He shifted his grip around the ankle, braced himself with the full intention of swinging the man and bashing his head on the pipe.

  The pirate knew he was done, and he’d given up. Tears were making little floating globules inside his helmet.

  “Should have thought of that before you killed those civilians,” Rev snarled.

  He tensed the muscles he used to control Pashu, ready to end the pirate’s life. But he stopped.

  Hell, Reverent. Look what he’s done.

  But he knew he couldn’t kill a helpless man, even a helpless pirate, despite as much as he wanted to.

  With a snarl, he pulled the man and twisted him around so he could use Pashu to put him into a headlock. He looked up, ready to push off.

  So, you think I should kill him?

  It didn’t matter. His warrior had fled, and he no longer even wanted to be the executioner. Rev released his geckos and used his suit thrusters to cross over to the deck.

  “Zip-tie him,” he told Akkeke, still holding the now limp pirate.

  To Rev’s surprise, it wasn’t disdain he saw on the corporal’s face. It was something more akin to respect.

  “You catch something?” SFC Gamay asked as she pulled herself up to Rev while Akkeke was securing the prisoner.

  “Yeah. I caught one. We’ve got three alive. Four dead. No civilians dead . . . I mean, of the ones in the vacsuits. There are some that looked l
ike they might have died when the air was lost.”

  “There wouldn’t have been too many of the emergency suits here. It must have sucked to realize you weren’t getting one.”

  The squad leader suddenly looked closer and grabbed Rev, then twisted him around so they were oriented together. “Your Oscar’s been punctured.”

  Of course, she would see it. Punctures were always sealed with a red color to make them easier to spot.

  “That bastard shot me.”

  Gamay gently probed the spot, then turned Rev around. “Through and through. Can you move the shoulder?”

  Rev rotated his arm.

  Just what I need. Already lost the left one, and now this.

  But the arm moved freely.

  “Can you tell what damage there is?”

 

  I got hit because I relaxed my guard. I assumed the fight was over. Lesson learned.

  “I think I’m OK,” he told his squad leader. “Nothing major.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to wait until a medic can check you out. Our orders are to secure this space from any stragglers.”

  “I can hang. What’s the status with everyone else?”

  “The bridge is trashed but secure. Second Platoon is now clearing all the passenger spaces.”

  “And Ting?”

  “Staff Sergeant Tjivyrtzlin and his team have secured the propulsion tubes. Now that the ship isn’t going to be blasted by the Taka, the owners, or whoever, don’t want any more damage.”

  Rev let out a sigh of relief.

  “And now we wait. The Taka is sending over their engineers to try and get life support up and running again. These emergency vacsuits have a limited running time. After that, maybe in as soon as ten hours, a tug’ll arrive to bring the ship to the closest port.”

  “And them?” Rev asked, pointing with Pashu at the three living pirates.

  “Not our problem. We’ll be long gone before that’s decided. And now, you’re done. Go latch yourself somewhere and relax.”