The Daedalus Job (Outlaws of Aquilia Book 1)
Page 26
Tammy stood on the other side in full armor. She grinned behind her clear faceplate and handed me a rifle. “This is both awesome and fucking sucks. They’re in our engineering bay…they can control the whole ship.”
I nodded. “Yeah, and there’s more than one way out. We have to flush them back to their shuttle.”
“It’s the two of us against four of them. You could use the service bots,” Tammy suggested.
“I’d rather not. I’m going to need them after all this is over. You get up to the catwalk in the main bay, I’ll lead them in there. We’ll pin them down and get them to surrender.” I heard a sound from down the passage.
Tammy moved down the passageway and disappeared. I had to get the techs to follow me forward, up a ladder, and then back aft to the main bay.
All while not getting shot.
“You friggin’ asshats better get off my ship if you know what’s good for you!”
I threw a few more expletives their way and then moved down the passage, stopping at a cross-corridor and taking a position. The ladder was six meters further down the passage, and I hoped I’d be able to hold them back long enough to make it.
Sure enough, Olley and Alice swung into view moments later, both firing straight down the passage, their pulse blasts hitting the ladder. I waited for them to advance a few paces, then ducked out of the cross-corridor and fired a trio of widespread blasts that hit them both. Alice cursed, and they fell back to the aft intersection.
I took the opportunity and moved toward the ladder, stopping at the base to fire again down the passage before climbing up. Just as I was clearing the deck, a pulse shot hit my right foot, slamming my ankle into a rung, and numbing half my leg.
Pulling myself up the ladder, I rolled onto the deck and fired a few blasts down the ladder shaft before using my rifle as a prop to help me get on my feet.
If I die because I got a pulse blast to my foot…
It was twenty meters to the bay door, so I hobbled as fast as I could, praying I’d make it before one of the DSA asshats finished me off.
A shot hit my left shoulder and spun me around. I caught sight of Alice’s head poking up the ladder shaft, and thumbed my rifle over to projectile mode, spraying a dozen rounds down the passage.
She screamed an obscenity and dropped out of view, giving me enough time to push off from the bulkhead and stumble to the main hold’s entrance. I fell through and hit the deck hard.
The DSA crates were ten meters away, but they might as well have been a thousand. There was no way I could crawl to them before Alice and Olley reached me.
“Kallie!”
I looked up to see Tammy hanging over the railing above.
“Catch!”
She tossed a small object to me, and by some miracle, I caught it, instantly recognizing a flashbang. I thumbed the control and chucked it into the passage, turning to scramble toward the crates.
I heard a cry of dismay a few moments later, and entreated the stars, hoping it would be enough.
Heavy footfalls sounded in the corridor and someone shouted, “Stop!” just as I reached the crates and took cover behind them.
When I’d come up with this plan, I’d hoped to have time to put on some armor, or grab a second weapon. But all I could manage was to stand up and clutch my single weapon, praying that Tammy would think of something.
I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of that.
“Hey, assholes!” I called out. “Come and get me!”
Tammy groaned over the Link.
I tapped the bay’s feeds, setting the views of the two entrances on my HUD to watch them both. After a few moments, Alice poked her head in through the door I’d used and then disappeared. Shortly after, Aarons did the same on the other.
“Just give it up, bitch,” the chief called out. “We’ve got you cornered, and if you make it hard for us, we’ll make it hard for you.”
“Shit, Aarons,” I couldn’t help but laugh as I replied. “You mean to layer all that innuendo in there?”
“You know what, screw you. This is going to be hard either way.”
“A top and a bottom. I like it.”
Aarons didn’t respond, instead he moved into the bay, taking cover behind the equipment rack on the starboard bulkhead. Alice followed his lead, moving behind a small stack of crates near the door to reach the far side, while Olley followed after. Higgs came in a few moments later, hunkering down behind Aarons.
“Last chance,” the chief called out.
“Yeah, for you to get to your shuttle!” I replied, slipping my right leg through a cargo strap to keep me behind cover.
I saw Aarons nod to Higgs, and a moment later, he and Alice moved out into the open, weapons aimed toward the rear of the DSA crates, advancing steadily.
I killed the a-grav in the bay just as Alice and Higgs were taking a step. Their actions pushed them into the air, sending them cartwheeling forward toward the crates.
A shot came from the catwalk, hitting Higgs in the leg. A few seconds later, a shot came from another location, catching Alice in the gut.
Both were flung back toward me, and I fired pulse blasts at each while Tammy fired on the other DSA techs. She hit Aarons in the side, but Olley proved harder to flush out.
“Those crates are empty, Tammy,” I said loudly.
“Oh!” she laughed. “In that case—”
“I surrender!” Olley called out, flinging his pistol out from behind the crates.
The pilot chuckled.
36
ENEMY IN THE DARK
Aboard the Victorious Strike…
“Commander Sinclair, the profiles are too small to be anything other than fighters or missiles,” the scan officer announced after a minute of triangulation.
I nodded, guessing missiles over fighters. I couldn’t imagine pirates mustering up hundreds of brave souls to fly a mission in the growing maelstrom. If lost out here, there would be no chance of rescue.
“Major Naomi, instruct all cruisers to deploy drones to protect their assigned ships. Have the MFPs move to the far side of the convoy.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Naomi responded.
The main holo showed a two-lightsecond sphere of space. On the left was the convoy, spread across fifty thousand kilometers, the ships spaced widely enough that no vessel had to travel in another’s engine wash to have room to maneuver.
It also meant that if any vessels did get hit by incoming fire, debris from impacts wouldn’t strike other ships. Too many commanders packed ships close together, but that just gave fighters and missiles a cornucopia of targets. Even this deep in the clouds, the beams on a DSA cruiser could deliver hull-penetrating energy at twenty thousand kilometers.
On the right side of the display were the incoming objects. Markers noted their delta-v, a rather sedate 0.01c, roughly three thousand kilometers per second. That was slow for missiles, but well within the norm of close-range fighters. I still held by my belief that the objects would be unmanned.
Even though the speed was relat
ively slow, it gave us only three minutes to react.
“Helm, bring us out to the van,” I ordered, marking a position in the battlespace.
It would put us in front of a cluster of three other cruisers. Though the Victorious Strike couldn’t withstand the barrage by itself, the combined beams of the four cruisers would be enough to destroy dozens of missiles.
“Aye, Commander, coming about. Full burn.”
The deck shuddered as the lateral thrusters spun the ship, followed by full burns from the four aft fusion engines. A few seconds later, the vibrations settled into the low hum of tritium being fused into helium and lithium.
Our destination was just over seven thousand kilometers away, and with a 100g burn, we’d make it just before the missiles were in effective beam range. A low murmur of activity spread across the bridge as the long-range attack stations prepared their weapons and tested SC battery charges, while the point defense beams were powered on and their systems ran short discharge tests.
The other cruisers in the task force maintained their position, remaining perpendicular to the path of the incoming objects, exposing more of their lateral beams than if they faced the targets head-on.
I nodded with satisfaction as one by one, the ships began to rotate, ensuring that no part of their hull was exposed for more than a few seconds. If we were facing missiles, that wouldn’t matter as much, but if there were fighters in the mix, it would make their beams less effective.
Like the other heavier DSA vessels, the Victorious Strike had been sheathed in ice. That wasn’t the norm when on patrol, as it ruined any attempt at stealth, but when the ship was part of a convoy escort, there was no reason to hide. Here, the cruisers’ purpose was to take a beating, drawing fire while the corvettes and destroyers used their greater mobility to engage and destroy the enemy.
As we passed beyond the three cruisers that would provide us additional covering fire, the incoming objects began to jink wildly, changing course so rapidly, it appeared that they were winking in and out of existence on scan.
“So,” I nodded grimly. “It’s missiles. All batteries, prepare to fire on targets once they reach maximum effective range.”
We were trying to circle around to the bay where we’d seen the shuttle earlier, but every time we tried to move forward on the ship, we ran into patrols. The enemy soldiers were carrying portable scanners that were sweeping the corridors with multi-spectrum EM.
Our armor’s stealth could avoid passive detection systems, but active scan was a different story altogether. We may as well paint ourselves in neon and run down the passages screaming our heads off for all the good it would do.
The engines!
An idea began to form in my head. At this point, there was no way the enemy would rest until they found us. We had to get off the ship without a trace, and we had to die.
Or at least appear to.
I sent an affirmation and waited for her signal. Ten seconds later, she shouted
The two soldiers in the formation went down under the hail of fire—along with their scan unit. The other pair returned fire, but a lucky shot from Penny hit one right above the thigh, while I pummeled the last man in the face with kinetic rounds.
His faceshield cracked, and he went down with a scream.
We made it thirty meters aft to the next intersection, a narrow passage that led toward the ship’s main shaft on our left, and toward more maintenance passages on our right.
I led Penny to the right, and five minutes later, we’d taken a dozen turns deep into a warren of accessways that snaked around the ship’s fuel tanks and power generation systems.
I watched as Penny’s posture changed.
Cold dread swept over me.
I was tempted to ask for details, but I was worried it would be something that would break my focus on the task at hand. I decided to get just enough information to calm my fears.
Penny wasn’t an idiot. She knew the Kerrigan was our ride out of the maelstrom—at least, the one that didn’t involve being in a DSA brig. She probably had some sort of ulterior motive, but at least her objectives aligned with mine for the moment.
It took us four minutes to reach the auxiliary engineering bay. The room had two entrances that led forward, and the one narrow passage that led aft to the lifeboat.
The bottom of the ship was only fifteen meters below our feet at this point, only crawlspaces and conduit between the deck plate and the hull.
We entered through the starboard door, moving toward the cluster of consoles in the center of the room where three specialists worked. I moved to one side, while Penny moved to the other.
A quick three-count, and we disabled our stealth.
“Hey there,” I said, my rifle a meter from one of the tech’s faces, the barrel at eye level. “I think it’s time for you guys to go.”
“Shoo, fly,” Penny added, her grin clearly visible from behind her cleared faceplate.
“What the hell?” one of the specialists blurted out. “What are you doing here?”
“Shit,” Penny glanced at me. “Is he deaf or an idiot?”
“Don’t think the DSA w
ould have anyone who’s deaf. That’s pretty easy to fix. Lot of idiots, though. I’m going to go with that.”
Penny turned to the man who had spoken. “I’ll say it real simply for you. Leave.”
“Now!” I raised my weapon and fired a round into the overhead.
That finally had the desired effect, and the specialists ran from the room, Penny and I following after, closing both doors.
A momentary fear passed through me, concern that she’d just take the escape craft and go, but since I hadn’t told her how to keep from being detected by the Daedalus, she’d have to wait for me.
“OK.” I jerked my chin toward the rear passage. “Get to it.”
37
ONE WAY
Aboard the Kerrigan…
There hadn’t been any signs of activity in the Daedalus’s shuttle, but Tammy and I weren’t taking any chances. She set up one of our hull bots with two of the DSA rifles aimed at the airlock, while I escorted our prisoners one by one back to their shuttle.
None had suffered life-threatening injuries—at least, not once we staunched all the bleeding with biofoam—and they were all conscious.
Aarons was extra surly, complaining about every bump from his perch atop the hovercart that drive him through the passages.
“You’re gonna fucking pay for this,” he muttered over and over.