He watched nervously through a large control room window overlooking the main hangar. The Clever Dream was guided in by a tractor beam. He would make her welcome, treat her as she deserved to be treated and when the time came they would be closer than any mere humans could ever be.
The Clever Dream was brought down onto the deck and a team of soldiers in black Vindyne armour moved up the main gangway carefully. It was a beautiful ship, he would ensure that it was well maintained and ready for her. Someday he knew he would be able to allow her to leave and trust her to return of her own accord.
The ten soldiers disappeared into the belly of her sleek, black ship. “Captain, report. Is she inside?” Asked Meunez.
“We're in the first corridor. This thing has a lot of living space sir. She hasn't presented herself yet.”
“All right, I'm sending beta team in.”
“Yes sir.”
Another ten soldiers rushed up the ramp. Their rifles were slung, side arms in their holsters as instructed. They weren't to present an immediate threat if they could help it. The last of them disappeared into the ship and Gabriel counted the milliseconds for as long as he could stand it. “Anything on thermals or motion detection?”
“No sir. Wait, I see something on thermals. Stand by.”
The gangway slammed shut. A communications officer turned to him with a worried expression. “We've lost our link to the teams sir.”
A moment later the gangway lowered slowly, at it's normal speed. “Theta team, check on alpha and beta,” Ordered Meunez.
Ten more armoured soldiers rushed up the ramp and a moment later the Captain's report came. “Dear God, they've been incinerated.”
“Get out of there!”
The gangway slammed shut once more and communications between the ship and the team dropped off.
Gabriel looked on in horror as all the weapons on the ship activated. Panels slid aside to reveal missiles and guns as though the ship itself was sneering, bearing its deadly teeth for all to see. The deck Sergeant took Gabriel's arm. “We should go sir!” he shouted, pulling him out of the room.
As he was dragged away from the window he could see Alice drop out of a rear engine compartment. A slim figure in a blue vacsuit and old flight jacket armed with a rifle, a case slung across her back and a sidearm dropping out of her black nightmare of a ship.
Seconds later he was behind the door to the control room and he could hear the explosions and thunderous impacts as the main hangar bay of his flagship was decimated.
Shadows
The patch of ground was as level as you could find in the swamp hell that had been chosen for their meeting place. In the middle stood Stephanie, dressed in the Captain's coat and scarf. Her vacsuit was sealed and the faceplate was blacked out so no one could see her face.
As a severe looking craft that looked like it was made from harsh angles and a collection of various triangular sections landed, she stood stoically. Before the main gangway at the front of the thirty meter long ship came down she drew the Captain's sidearm. Four soldiers in white and grey vacsuits, completely out of place in the misty darkness, walked down the ramp.
“Drop it,” One of them commanded.
She hesitated a moment, as the Captain would, and tossed the gun between them. “Don't lose that. I'll want it back later,” she said through the voice disguiser. It sounded exactly like the Captain's voice.
They split ranks so there was enough room for her to walk up the ramp and she obliged.
Frost knew for a fact that the Captain, secure in his cloaksuit, was right behind her. As the ramp closed he dreaded what he must do next. He had been buried in the soft ground right under her feet, and with all his strength he rose up and ran to the nearest landing strut. As the ship started lifting off he stepped on and climbed up.
“I really have to talk to Captain about keeping me out of the action,” he muttered to himself. He knew why he was the one entrusted with finding a hiding place in a hurry. Stephanie didn't have the technical knowledge or experience sneaking around he did. Jake might not have known about his ship thieving past, but he did know Frost had been an excellent burglar before and after he joined the crew of the Samson.
The compartment was tight and he looked desperately for a service door or hatch, anything.
They were in the air when he finally found the service hatch. The gear started retracting and he tried to squeeze his shoulders inside. He almost made it half way but nearly became stuck. “I've got ta lose some weight, dammit. Get back in fightn' form.”
He lowered himself back down into the small undercarriage space and knowing he'd be crushed when the landing strut was fully retracted he wrapped the power cords leading to the retractor around his hand and yanked hard, disabling the mechanism that would draw the undercarriage inside. “Oh I think they'll notice that.”
Hernando Ramirez
The ship was massive, he'd only been aboard something as large when he was in the infantry. The drop ship he served on was huge, but all he really saw was the gymnasium, the berth, drop bays, disciplinary room, the showers and the head. Grunts didn't get to see much of anything else. Despite that, he wasn't quite out of his element.
He was still ducking behind corners, running through hallways, firing off at a pair of pursuers trying to gun him down. That was the most familiar thing about the situation and it was all he really needed.
It was becoming evident that men knew just as much about where they were as he did; little to nothing. They were new aboard, so the advantage of familiar ground belonged to no one. He came to a skidding stop at the end of a hallway and ducked around the corner, looking for doorways. The lighting was dim, the corners were dusty, but the ship was very well constructed and there was a bulkhead every twenty meters. It was built to an older standard, meant to last. Any wall was good cover, their ammunition couldn't penetrate but neither could his.
The map he had downloaded from the ship computer wasn't as detailed as he would like, the security built into the computer didn't allow labels to appear and he wasn't an engineering genius like Finn, so he couldn't tell the crew quarters from the galley. From the looks of it there was a lift at the end of the hallway that lead up into the rear of the ship and the doors between lead to four large sections.
He peeked his head out from the corner and glimpsed the pair who had been chasing him. A shot narrowly missed and to his dismay there was no time for him to make it to the lift. He couldn't guarantee that the doors would open or close fast enough to provide cover.
Instead he took the few steps required to get into the nearest room, only the doors didn't open. He ran to the next and fired down the hallway at the pair of security officers. They were using the corner for cover, and firing wildly around the bend without looking.
The hall was sealed off, and he took one last chance, rolling across the floor to the elevator doors. The panel to one side lit up, indicating that a car was on its way. He got as low as he could and fired back, hitting the corner the pair were firing from and firing just past, trying to intimidate them into not risking their hands or forearms as they stretched out, firing blindly.
With a glance upward he could see that the ceiling was completely sealed. Other than a few pipes and heavily insulated cables there was nothing, no panels, hatches or other ways out. One of the guards tried to peek and take an aimed shot at him. Ramirez caught him squarely in the forehead. The light energy deflected off the man's vacsuit, but the initial heat must have done the job. The guard slumped to the floor, motionless.
The elevator doors parted and he backed inside. The second security officer took several shots at him and just as the doors closed one caught him above the right hip. Ramirez fell to the ground and checked the burn. It was more painful than the shot he had taken in the leg, but he could move.
“Finn, I'm out unless I can find pain killers, something,” he said, breathing raggedly. He reached up to the control panel and pressed the top level button then the rest.
“Finn, do you hear me?”
“Yes, I'm looking. Are you okay?”
“I took a hit. I'll probably live but I'm out of the action. Can you see where I am?”
“In the lift?”
“That's me.”
“Okay, there's an emergency station just outside on the fourteenth level.”
“Fantastic, anyone there?”
“Nope, like most of the ship it's pretty much empty. Now that you mention it, there's automation all over the place. It's like the Triton was rigged so a hundred people could run it.”
“Interesting,” Ramirez said while grinding his teeth together. The pain in his side was so intense he saw spots as he stood up on the opposite leg and cancelled all the floor requests except for the fourteenth.
“Sorry, you probably don't want to hear me go on.”
“No, keep talking, it distracts me from feeling like someone's slowly sawing me in half,” he tried to take a deep breath but was rewarded with stabbing pain. “How is Agameg doing?”
“He's stopped in the brig, he's been there a while but outside the cells.”
“I've managed to become the brig watchman. Have they started moving people from the Samson yet?” Price asked in a hushed whisper.
“Nice work buddy!” Ramirez commented. The lift arrived on the fourteenth floor and he struggled out of the car and into the hallway. The emergency medical kit was just a couple meters away but it seemed much further. He steeled himself, ground his teeth together and moved as quickly as he could, falling against the emergency medical station. He cried out involuntarily in response to the sudden pressure on his middle.
“I'm going to help Ramirez,” Price said.
“Stay there! I'll be okay.”
“I'm sorry, I heard you and assumed.”
“I'm getting treatment,” he replied as he activated the emergency station. “Well, self medicating I hope.” A bed came out of the wall and he leaned on it. “I'll try to keep it down next time.” Hurriedly he looked through one of the drawers and found a package with a green cross on it. The universal symbol for pain killers. The package came undone easily and relief was instantaneous as he injected himself with whatever was inside.
“That guard is taking the elevator!” Finn warned.
“Dammit!” Ramirez rifled through the drawer for a moment, then just took a hand full of packages and limped down the hallway. “Always running out of time. Any way for you to stop the elevator?”
“I don't have that kind of control.”
He turned towards the next doorway and found it sealed. “What the hell? How much of this ship do they actually use?”
“What?”
“None of these doors are opening,” he complained as he crossed the hall to another.
“I can't access door controls for that area.”
Ramirez looked around, he had no cover. “Well, I'll see you real soon if I'm lucky Agameg,” he griped as he dropped his gun and looked through the medical packages for anything that could help. “Hey, what does a blue and green cross mean?”
“I think that will increase your rate of recovery,” Agameg replied.
“Like nanobots?”
“No, chemically. Didn't you take emergency medical training?”
“Sure I did, fifteen years ago and five sectors away. Okay, here goes,” He injected himself with the six ounces of dark red fluid. The lift doors started opening and he held his hands up. Luckily, the security officer wasn't overly trigger happy. “I surrender!” Ramirez called out before falling to the floor, unconscious.
Agameg tried not to look worried as Ramirez was delivered to the brig on a hover gurney.
“Bastard shot Berman and jumped into a lift. Open cell five,” the guard ordered.
Agameg pressed the door control and watched the cell open.
The guard pushed the gurney inside and rolled Ramirez off onto the floor unceremoniously. “Injected himself with an emergency stasis dose right before I caught him. Strangest thing I've ever seen.”
“What?” Agameg slipped.
The guard looked right at him. “Yup, he'll be out for at least eight hours. Probably feel better than any of us when he wakes up too,” he kicked Ramirez before pushing the gurney out of the cell. “Close it up.”
Agameg complied.
“You look better. Feeling okay now?” Asked the guard.
“Much better, thank you.”
“Got a frog in your throat?”
Agameg didn't understand and cocked his head. “I don't think so.”
“Ah, you just sound a little different, probably just a bug.”
Agameg nodded.
“Any chance we could switch? After that chase I don't much feel like getting the rest of the crew from that piece of scrap on the landing deck.”
“I don't think the Captain would like that.”
“Yeah, he's particular. See you in a few,” the guard said as he left the brig.
“You're getting better at this,” Ashley whispered after the hatch closed.
“Thank you, I wouldn't have been as convincing without your direction.” Agameg said with a nod. “Finn, it sounds like guards will be discovering our empty racks soon,” he whispered.
“You're right, there are already four guards on their way onto the ship. They've detected the energy signature from the Big Surprise and are coming to check it out.”
“Oh no.”
“I'm trying to set it to blow and get out.”
Agameg checked the locations of crew members on that floor and nodded to himself. “I'm going to let everyone out of their cells.”
“Good idea, there's a chance the brig controls would be disabled when this goes off.”
Agameg opened all the cells and was joined by Ashley, Cynthia and the two other crewmen. He had discovered one was named Marcus Jackson and the other was Vanda Mason. “We will have to arm ourselves somehow along the way.”
“Can you find a weapons locker?” Cynthia asked, looking at the brig controls.
“No, the security implemented across the ship seems to be based on a localized system of control. You can see and hear much, but actually do very little.”
“Okay, that makes things complicated. I'm not exactly the best hacker around.”
“Localized control?” Ashley asked.
“It means that most stations don't have any kind of remote control available, so you have to operate certain systems from certain stations. It might have something to do with the automation.” Cynthia supposed as she browsed through the different control menus so fast Agameg couldn't track. “Yup, there are stations specific to engineering, navigation, weaponry, medical and other broad categories. Over two thirds of the ship is completely locked down and has been for decades. This ship hasn't operated with anything but a skeleton crew for a long time. Did you find out how many people are aboard?”
“There are about sixty five crew as far as I could determine.”
“Well, that looks like an arms locker there. If we find a good corner to hole up in we should be able to hold out until the Captain finds us.”
“There's a small ship landing beside the Samson,” Finn whispered.
“Someone is landing,” Agameg relayed.
“Well, let's get moving. I'm betting that's the Captain now,” Ashley said, opening the brig hatchway.
Finn could see and hear the incoming security team of four perfectly. The Samson's internal sensors were never turned off. “The power reading is coming from in here,” said one of the team members.
“Think it's a line of reserve capacitors?”
“Maybe, Captain Wheeler wanted it checked before the Cold Reaver landed.”
“Some name for a drop ship.”
“Have you seen the guns on that thing? It's loaded down with electromagnetic pulse cannons. If that weren't enough there are two railgun turrets.” Replied one of the security officers. “I would not want to get behind that thing in a fighter, you'd be dust in seconds.”
“Aw crap, there's the Reaver. We better hurry down in there and check it out,” he overheard one of the security officers complain.
“Don't worry, the Captain's got four guys with him, what could go wrong?”
“Two of them aren't even part of a security detail, they're mechanics dressed up like officers. We'd better make it quick.”
The hatch opened and Finn was face to face with one of the security officers. “Hi!”
“What the? Don't move!”
Finn squeezed his eyes shut and activated the launch door on his computer pad, holding on for dear life. The big surprise was thrust through the launch doors below it and crashed into the hangar deck, knocking the wind out of Finn even though his vacsuit protected him from most of the concussive force.
He didn't have time to catch his breath, the big surprise and the landing struts were the only cover he had. Captain Wheeler and four of his crew members looked on in surprise as Finn rolled off the ugly mess of capacitors and energy units then ran for the nearest exit as hard as he could.
He went right under where the Cold Reaver was landing and into a doorway. Finn found the control panel, closed the doors and busted the cover off hurriedly. He looked for wiring underneath. It was all modern, high quality heavy duty integrated circuitry. There were no loose wires to manipulate. Hoping for the best he pulled the flat, featureless circuit board as hard as he could and showered himself in sparks as it came free. A larger panel beneath popped open to reveal a crank for manually opening the door and he jammed his foot down onto it, hoping he was strong enough to keep the door closed. “God I hope that's the only door leading into this room,” he looked around for a moment and realized he was inside a disused workshop. It was huge, and only partially lit. There were parts in neat stacks near the doorway, along with an engine on a stand he assumed was from a shuttle.
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