“Do you see anything good?” Chief asked.
“Can’t you see what I see?” he asked as he peered inside the crate with real disappointment.
“I’m making small talk. Everything is bupkis so far. This is the only way I can entertain myself.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be making that patio?” He shut the crate and opened the others to take quick peeks before he sighed. “This one has a few pistols in it, and the others had some rifles. Certainly nothing worth trading our weapons in for. Maybe Genos can use them to make a torpedo or something.”
Chief’s eye skewed in the HUD. “I don’t think that’s possible.”
“I was exaggerating, although to be fair, if you’d played it right, I would have totally believed you if you said it was possible.” Kaiden let the top of the crate crash to the floor. He dusted his hands off and looked around. On the other side of the room, a few shelves ran along the wall. He hurried over to examine a couple of cylinders with white markings on the side, picked one up, and shook his head. “Hey, Chief, what are these?”
“Explosives of some kind. Hold it up and let me scan it.”
He raised the device to his visor and a white line flared across his screen. “It appears to be a type of swarm grenade similar to the ones Genos and Cameron use from time to time. It looks like they seek out anything with an energy source and attach to it before they drain the energy from whatever they stick to.”
Kaiden rolled it around in his hand. “That sounds nifty, but if the seekers search things out indiscriminately, it’s basically a crapshoot if they attack anything useful.”
“That’s why the ones who usually use them are engineers or techies who have devices that allow them to control the devices a little better. But in this case, the top of the grenade has a little dial. Take a look.”
He flipped the grenade and looked at a small dial with white marking beside it. Without thinking, he took the knob between his fingers and turned it once. The white marking at the knob and on the side of the grenade changed to blue. “What did I do?” he asked and nearly dropped the grenade. “I didn’t just kill us, did I?”
“As hilarious as that would be, I wouldn’t let you do that,” Chief huffed. “Even in the relative safety of the Animus, I have some sense of self-preservation.”
Kaiden looked at the device once more, turned the knob again, and changed the color to red. “Okay, so my guess is that it’s a color-coded system, and each color means a different type of target for the seekers to attack?”
“Good guess. White is neutral, so they go after whatever is nearby. Blue is for electricity, purple is plasma, and red is heat.”
“Heat?” he asked, surprised. “As in, only heat-seeking, or can they actually drain body heat?”
“I would typically blast you for suggesting something so silly, but in this case, you are right. These are experimental grenades made by our now good friends at Tessa,” Chief explained. Kaiden’s eyes narrowed in annoyance as he continued, “They were developed about three years ago, apparently a prototype for use by soldiers to circumvent that whole ‘these things are really complicated’ problem they had with other seeker grenades. Fun fact: they earned the nickname ‘nerd grenades’ because of this difficulty. Apparently, they had limited tests on Earth but sent batches out to other colonies and outposts where they could have different targets and experiences. Also anywhere they really lacked engineers. That’s probably more important.”
“I guess Axiom can’t make all the pain-in-the-ass doodads.” He sighed and took the other grenade from the shelf. “It’s hard to see where they could benefit by using them on a planet that was such a hostile jungle that the plants wanted to kill you, especially since you would be the one with the most power flowing. You could literally throw this thing sixty yards away and still have it blow up in your face.”
“My guess is that they were either supposed to be used in testing, procured from another ship, or were ‘gifts’ from the pirates for doing their dirty work on the planet.”
“If we did this for real, we could have made some money off them. Corporations and the WC have a turn-in value for devices like these if they are found in the wild.” He clipped both grenades to his belt. “For now, I think I’ll hang onto them.”
“There’s only that one room on the left still to check. I looked through the ship’s blueprints and didn’t find any smugglers’ hatches or secret doors.”
“Well, that’s disappointing. These guys don’t even know how to run a proper operation.” Kaiden left the room and sauntered to the remaining door, Chiyo’s drive at the ready. “Either the Animus is getting lazy, or these guys were based on galactic yuppies.”
He pressed the driver into a slot on the door’s access panel. “Wanna place a bet on what’s in there? No peeking with the scanner.”
“Yes, because there’s no place for such deviousness in gambling,” Chief chided with a roll of his eye. “My guess is provisions. We haven’t found any so far, and you would think they would have some aboard.”
“I’d bet on cleaning supplies. Maybe I can at least get my gear shined while we’re twiddling our thumbs.” He snickered. The light on the access panel turned green, and the door opened. He took one step, and his eyes widened at what was within. “Oh, this is way better than either of those things. Wait, do I even know how to use one of those?”
“Good thing you saved those points, huh?”
“Are there talents I can use to let me have a little fun with that?”
“Maybe not a specific one, but with the points you have left, we could invest them in a couple of different ones, and that should be enough to— Kaiden, brace yourself!”
Without hesitation, Kaiden dropped and braced himself against the frame of the door. A blast rocked the ship and tilted it to its side so steeply that he almost slid into the room opposite. He tightened his grip on the frame and used both hands to hold himself steady.
“What’s going on?”
“We’re under attack!” Chiyo shouted as she righted herself in her chair and stared at the screens.
“I agree.” Genos banked sharply away and pressed a few buttons on the console. “No need for stealth at the moment.”
“Who or what is attacking us?” she asked, staring at the displays. “Moderate damage to the shields. Another blast or two and those will be gone. Kaitō, get back here!” In less than a second, the fox avatar appeared in her display.
“I am ready, madame,” Kaitō acknowledged. “What do you require?”
“I’m sending you into the ship’s systems. Activate cyberwarfare suite, and make sure they can’t access us.” Another bolt of energy roared toward the left side of the cockpit, barely avoided by a quick tilt of the controls from Genos. Chiyo drew a plug on a cord from her gauntlet and inserted it into the ship’s console. “I don’t think they plan to attack us that way, but to be safe, after that, see if there’s any way we can access their systems.”
The fox nodded. “Understood. I shall inform you of my progress momentarily.” With that, Kaitō disappeared, and Chiyo opened a holoscreen,
“I’ll see if there are any auto-guns or turrets on the ship we can use. If so, I’ll set them to fire all at once on them to break through their shields.”
“I’m not sure that’s an option,” Genos confessed. “Like I said, this ship is more along the lines of a supply ship. It doesn’t have many offensive options.” He looked at the stick in his right hand. “This controls the front cannon. That may be all we have to fight with. I turned off the stealth drive so the shields will gain power, but that doesn’t mean we can take more than a few strikes before it tears into us.”
She balled a fist. “Dammit, you’re right. There’s nothing.” She sighed but laughed almost immediately.
“Is something amusing, friend Chiyo?” he asked as he made a deft turn to try to bring the enemy ship into view. “I could certainly use something to make the mood more joyous.”
�
�I simply thought we should try to finish this before Kaiden is able to get back in here. My guess is that he would volunteer to be shot out of a torpedo tube at the ship so he could infiltrate it.”
“That’s actually pretty close.” She looked over her shoulder as Kaiden stumbled into the cockpit, a hand on either wall to steady himself as he approached. “Since you seem to be so attuned to my way of thinking, I guess I won’t have to argue much.”
“Kaiden, we don’t even have a torpedo tube to launch you out of,” she retorted. “Genos said that all we have is the main cannon, and he’s trying to get a shot.”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to accomplish that,” the Tsuna huffed. “I can only catch glimpses of our pursuers. It doesn’t appear to be a fighter, but their ship is much faster and more agile than ours. I would say that it would be more likely that an errant asteroid would crash into it and take it out before we have a chance.”
“Well, that’s unfortunate.” Kaiden grinned. “So, back to my plan?”
Chiyo closed her holoscreen and looked at the ace. “I tremble to ask, but what is it exactly?”
“You drop me out of the back of the ship, and I’ll board the other ship and take it over.”
Both Chiyo and Genos—who should have been focused on the need to dodge the other ship’s attacks—looked at him incredulously.
“Friend Kaiden, even not taking into account that it is a very odd and dangerous plan, even by your standards, this is space. There is no gravity. You would simply float in space until you either suffocated or the enemy took pity on you and blew you apart.”
“Normally, yes,” Kaiden conceded before he drew his rifle and primed it. “But I found a new toy below that I want to try.”
Kaiden stood impatiently in the bay and waited for Genos to open the door. He was decked out in the astrosuit and a jet pack he had found. An excited smile settled his face when he heard Genos over the comm. “Are you sure about this, Kaiden?”
“Hurry up and open the door already!” he demanded. “Even if it doesn’t work out as I plan, I could be enough of a distraction for you to get the shots you need. Let’s do this.”
“You sound so jubilant,” Genos commented. “Very well, I’ll open the doors. I hope you have fun.”
“No doubt about it.” He braced himself as a light flickered overhead and a warning siren wailed. The doors began to part, and the force dragged him slowly toward them. When the gap was wide enough, he vaulted up and was immediately whisked away. He activated the jetpack as soon as he was clear of the ship.
He set a direct course for the enemy craft. It was slightly smaller than their shuttle and had been painted in pirate colors—the red and black of the DSC. Another idea popped into his head when he saw that, but he would let that wait. He raised Sire and charged it to full, then retrieved one of the seeker grenades he had found and activated it. The seekers erupted from the container and soared toward the enemy ship, attached themselves to the craft’s shields, and drained them. The shields briefly became visible, a shimmering blue color, before they faded along the front hull. Perfect.
Kaiden aimed carefully a few seconds before he and the ship collided and fired a blast. He could have sworn he saw the bewildered looks of the crew in the cockpit as they drew closer together immediately before his shot created an opening in the front of the vessel. With his weapon held tightly against his chest, he cut power to the jetpack and cruised through the aperture he had made. Surprised shouts and worried yelps came from the pirates as they either reacted to their unexpected visitor or to the hole in their damn ship.
He dropped Sire, drew Debonair, and scanned the room as he moved his free hand to his belt for the grenade he had previously turned to the heat setting. Seven, by his count—a cinch. As emergency hatches covered the hole in the cockpit, he threw the grenade and spun to fire at the two pirates closest to him. Both were eliminated in four shots. He rolled to the side as a weapon charged behind him, and the pirate’s shotgun blast missed him by inches.
By the time he turned again, the grenade had blown and three of the other pirates had been swarmed, including the one who had fired on him. He shifted his attention to the remaining pirate, who scrabbled for a gun on the underside of the console. Chief alerted him to the doors opening behind him, and Kaiden whirled and fired and, at the same time, flicked his wrist so his blade ejected into his hand. Two more pirates rushed in to help their comrades, only to be greeted by Debonair’s assault. They fell to seven shots, but Debonair was tapped. The final man had managed to latch onto the pistol he had tried to retrieve, but as he turned to fire, his eyes wild and a yellow, toothy grin smeared across his face, he had only a split second to see the tip of a knife as Kaiden’s blade pierced his skull. He stumbled back for a moment as if his body were too shocked to realize what had happened before he finally fell and joined the rest.
Kaiden vented Debonair as he hurried to turn off the ship’s engines. “Chief, take a look around and see if there’s anyone else. I’ll contact Chiyo and Genos.”
“Gotcha. On it.”
He removed the jetpack and retrieved Sire before he closed Debonair’s vent port and holstered it. With a final look around the cockpit, he placed a hand on the side of his helmet. “Genos, Chiyo, are you there?”
“Indeed, friend Kaiden. I assume it went well?” the mechanist asked.
Kaiden grinned. “Very well.”
“I see that the ship is powered down now. If you’re clear, we can come and get you, or you could fly back using the pack if you prefer.”
“Although that sounds great, I’ll do it another time.”
“I see that the ship is flying Dead Space colors,” Chiyo stated. “I don’t know if they are looking for us specifically, but I would guess we’ve lost the element of surprise.”
“Yeah…about that. I had an idea that I wanted to run by you two.” Chief reappeared in his visor and flashed green to give him the all-clear. “Why don’t you two come aboard our new ship? That one was getting a little stuffy.”
Chapter Fifteen
A massive dark shape floated up ahead in the distance. It would have been almost hidden in the blackness of space if it weren’t for the illumination of large lights that shone along its hull.
“Is that the station?” Chiyo asked as she donned the Dead Space crew helmet.
“It looks like it,” Kaiden replied as he adjusted his own stolen uniform and closed the visor. “It’s not shooting at us on sight, which is both nice and a sign that my plan has worked so far. We should be good—”
“We’re being hailed,” she interrupted.
Kaiden’s head dropped as he sighed. “Unless they want to identify us personally. There’s that too.”
“Should I bring it on screen?” Genos asked.
Kaiden nodded. “Make sure to send the codes you recovered, so it looks authentic. Activate voice modulation, Chief,” he ordered, then stood and walked to the center of the bay.
A holoscreen appeared and displayed a balding man with a salt-and-pepper beard in a black and red uniform and beanie on screen. “What are you doing back so soon, BAT-3? You’re still supposed to be on patrol. What happened to the ship that came into our borders?”
“We took it out,” Kaiden stated, his voice rougher and shallow as if he had spent the last two weeks smoking and yelling his lungs out every night. “Was able to recover some goods, too, but we were pegged in the front hull. Emergency shutters were activated, but we need repairs.”
“I thought you said that thing was a hunk of junk?” The pirate chuckled. “Yet it was still able to get a shot at you. How the hell did a jackass like you get a ship?”
“You have my files. Look up my list of accomplishments,” Kaiden retorted and folded his arms. “Keep yapping and I might make you a footnote.”
The pirate sneered and looked at Chiyo. “Can you vouch for this guy?”
She nodded. “There were some difficulties, but nothing that we couldn’t handle,”
she explained, her own voice raspy and brittle. “We were caught off-guard by the firepower, but like he said, we have some loot to show for it.”
The man placed a pinky in his ear and wiggled it as he thought. “Fine, opening hangar eighteen. Get in there, and be ready for someone to debrief you.”
“Hop to it,” Kaiden ordered and glanced at Genos, who nodded and deactivated the holoscreen.
“Go ahead and get ready,” Kaiden said to Chiyo. “I’m not sure how long we can fool them like this. If that guy is one of their best, I wouldn’t be too worried, but let’s pretend they aren’t all that lazy and prepare to fight if need be. I’ll handle the debriefing while you and Genos take notes and download schematics or whatever you can do in the meantime.” Kaiden looked at the Tsuna. “How far to the bay?”
“Usually, in stations like these, the repairs would be done on the lower decks. But they have either rearranged the hangars, or they don’t know what they are doing,” Genos said. “The designated hangar is toward the middle, where they would usually keep the fighters and ships ready for departure or battle. I’ll let you know if there’s anything suspicious.”
“Appreciate it.” Kaiden placed Sire on the back of the Dead Space armor. “Remember, if they ask about the weapons, pirates work for shares and they are our cut, so don’t let them spook you or take them.”
“Acknowledged.” Chiyo nodded. “How far do you think we can get?”
“It depends on where we need to go, really.” He shrugged. “Since we don’t have a bomb that can take this place out, it’ll probably fall to either one of you. My guess is that there’s an important system you can override and disable or, failing that, we can have Genos do one of his favorite hat tricks and blow the core.”
“Perhaps I should try something new?” Genos suggested and looked up from the controls. “I am beginning to feel that I’m predictable.”
“Normally, I would be all for that, but considering that this is an important test and all and we’re about to be in the base of the enemy and surrounded on all sides, maybe stick with the classics,” Kaiden stated. “From what I know, the Dead Space Crew are technically pirates but act more like a tribe. They got their start as settlers who simply said fuck it for one reason or another and became scavengers and eventually grew too big to be mere marauders. They were then classified as pirates, and the name came with the distinction.”
Animus Boxed Set 2 (Books 5-8): Revenant, Glitch, Master, Infiltration Page 12