by Robert Byers
“He’s doing his job, being the diplomat and making promises to accomplish the goals of the Imperium. I promise you Mason, he’s seething and he’s out for blood.” She looked him right in the eye and said, “Didn’t you hear him just say he authorized the nuke to take care of the enemy ship? That’s not something our Admiral does lightly.”
“So, if we see any of these insects we have to give them amnesty until they attack us? That’s ridiculous!” Ensign Oliver said with tears staining her cheeks, Tiberius wondered what had caused the crying, and if it was something important or something only she thought was important.
“If these rebels are anything like the ones that rose up on Lao, they’ll give us plenty of reasons to attack them after they ‘surrender’.” Captain Sidonia said reassuringly as she brought up the most recent attack from the news. She walked to Tiberius and said, “Cadet Vesper, you’ll follow me as we check the rest of this deck and then head to the next. I haven’t heard any reports from the other decks and that worries me. It’s a total coms blackout right now, which means we’ll be going in blind.”
He came to attention and said “Yes Sir.” Before falling in line and leading the way with her behind himself, and Cadets Walsh and Claudianus.
They cleared the rest of the section they were in and headed for one of the bulkheads that opened to the aft of the ship, one that was supposed to be sealed unless being used so if the ship took damage on either side the other was still pressurized.
Sidonia walked up to it and pressed her palm to the reader, stepped back and waited. On either side of the door were the rest of the squad while Mason and Victor stood to her left, and Vesper, Walsh and Claudianus were on her right. Their weapons were at the ready and when the doors hissed letting them know it was about to open they tightened their grips.
The door slid open and one of the crew from that side looked at them in shock, he had his weapon drawn as well, “Holy shit, you’re alive!” he said.
“Alive? Are there many dead on your side of the ship?” she asked and he nodded solemnly. “How many did we lose before the boarders were killed?”
“I’m the last of my squad, the rest were killed when they came over, they were nearby when the ship slammed into our hull and cut through, so they were the first to engage and I only survived because I was in the head.”
“Are you fucking serious?” Walsh demanded accusingly. “You really expect us to believe that fucking story?”
“Hey, it’s the godsdamned truth! ‘Sides who the hell are you to accuse me?” the man was agitated that was for sure.
He stepped towards them and Captain Sidonia pressed her pistol to the man’s forehead. “I don’t recognize you boy, and I know everyone on this ship. What’s your name and serial?”
The man looked at her and it was visible just how uncomfortable he was. “My name is Roger Jones, my rank is Petty Officer First Class. My service number is three five eight-”
“Get on your knees.” She kept her gun aimed at his forehead and his eyes went wide. “Walsh, name and service number.”
“Sir, Maddox Walsh, eight eight three five three zero two eight five one, sir!” he belted it out at attention and she smiled at the man in front of them.
“You see that? That’s a soldier I don’t have to worry about, he’s a true Terran Navy sailor. You’re an impostor.”
He began raising his hands in surrender and she motioned for Walsh and Vesper to restrain him.
“No, no! I’m one of you I swear, I just have a hard time remembering my number. I was just stationed here from Titan, I’m brand new so you wouldn’t remember yet Captain. Please!” he was pleading and she looked at him with even more disgust than before. Walsh and Tiberius had their weapons holstered and the man was trying to grab at Walsh’s handgun, pulling at it just before shoving him into Captain Sidonia, trying to escape the corridor and make it to some semblance of safety.
Tiberius had his rifle unslung from his back and sighted him quickly. Squeezing the trigger he sent a round tearing through the man’s right calf, he fell screaming to the steel floor grabbing at his leg and screaming obscenities at them all.
“Damned good shot Cadet Vesper. Now cuff him Mason”
“Cap, why didn’t you have one of us restrain him?” Cadet Victor asked as Mason and Walsh rushed the man and slapped zip cuffs on his wrists, hefted him to his feet and pulled him along towards them.
“Because it was the perfect way to test him. If he gave up, he was most likely one of us that was new and just freaked out because of the situation, because he’d never been through something like this before. But if he fought then he gave us the excuse to use force to detain him.”
When the terrorist was brought over to them she looked at him and he spit in her face, “You’ll lose this war you Terran pig.”
She smiled at him and said, “I guess we will just have to wait and see. I don’t think you’ll live to see the end of this little rebellion of yours thought.” She said and hit him with a right hook that cranked his head to the side and back, his jaw went slack and blood flew from his mouth, but he stayed conscious.
His eyes went wide, like he hadn’t thought about the fact he could be dead soon when her radio squawked and she nearly jumped out of her skin at the unexpected sound. “Does anybody copy? I repeat is anyone there?”
She looked at the shock on the terrorists face and knew he had something to do with what was happening o the radios. “That’s why we couldn’t hear anything on the short waves, you lot put some scramblers up didn’t you? Then the crew wouldn’t hear anything and then send more people to find out what was going on…Put him in the maintenance closet over there, make sure his wound is plugged up, so he doesn’t bleed to death.”
She pressed the button on her radio she spoke into it. “This is Captain Sidonia, who am I speaking with?”
They carried him over and opened the door, he was still cuffed, but Cadet Vesper hauled back and punched him square in the jaw, right on the button and he dropped to the ground out cold, his jaw hanging awkwardly. “Sorry, left my stun gun back in the armory.” He said to Mason with a smile.
Payton Oliver walked up to him and fired twice at the man’s head and his body jerked quickly as if seizing and went still.
“What the hell!” Mason called out.
“They all deserve to die. All of them.” She walked away and they knew the prisoner would be quiet now, if he was even still alive from those shots to the head.
“This is First Lieutenant Watson,” the voice said as it came over Captain Sidonia’s handheld. “Thank the gods, I didn’t think I was going to hear anything on this thing. Have you encountered any of the boarders?”
“My squad has encountered eight of them, seven are in custody.” There was some excitement over the radio and she continued. “They had the short-wave radios jammed somehow, until I opened the door to this section of the ship, I couldn’t hear anything over the radio.”
“Well damn. So, they have some intelligence on our ship then.”
“This is Admiral Harcourt,” his voice came over the radios and cut everyone off. “I have confirmation from eight of my squads that there are boarders who have been captured, or killed, after my message was sent out. I do believe we have them all accounted for. Any teams who find the jamming devices they have put into effect on each deck is to disable and retrieve the devices.”
“Have you located the one on your end Captain?” the First Lieutenant asked her.
“Not yet, you look for the one on your end, it’ll be something that doesn’t fit in with the rest of the ship. I’ll com you when I find ours.”
—
Captain Sidonia led her squad through the bulkheads as they searched for more terrorists, and more bodies. It was a sad day when Imperial soldiers were killed the way Billingsby and Ryder were killed, hands cuffed behind them and shot execution style.
She needed to find the signal scrambler and make sure they caught any other intruders aboar
d ship. After reuniting with Tiberius and his little group they were even more powerful, even more concentrated on removing the filth that was aboard the ship. And they were going to do it the right way.
After passing through the second bulkhead they kept their weapons at the ready, eager yet slightly frightened for what would be around each corner. In this section of the ship the lights weren’t working correctly. Instead of the bright steel corridor around them it was dark with shadows, and they couldn’t tell if any of the dark spots they’d seen were from blaster fire, or from just having shadows there.
Captain Sidonia walked to a sanitary closet on the right side of the hallway and motioned for two of the squad to cover her while the others moved into position to cover both ends of the corridor.
Pressing the doorknob the closet door swung open and she saw the missing troopers from this section. They were thrown in the closet like trash, dead and gone, but their bodies weren’t even taken care of right. They weren’t put to rest like the warriors they were. And that was what pissed her off the most.
Tiberius walked up to see the soldiers and she heard how tight he gripped his pulse rifle. “They are going to pay for this. Every one of them, that had anything to do with this attack.”
She couldn’t be sure if he was talking to her, or to himself. Either way she was ready for this to be over. The Rising Anvil terrorist organization had shown up as a small group of fanatics that protested the Emperor’s rules, and they transformed into a group that attacked smaller outposts at the edge of Imperial space. But they never attacked a ship like this before. They were getting more brazen and ballsy than she’d ever expected them to.
“Fire!”
The voice came from somewhere down the hall from them, all of the soldiers turned towards the sound and saw men rushing them wearing a green uniform, nothing like the uniforms of the Terran Navy.
Captain Sidonia was angry, she was ready for some revenge. She turned towards them and called to the rest of her squad. “Weapons free.” And then all hell broke loose.
Tiberius aimed down his sight and saw one of the eight men rushing them and fired, his rifle set to burst, and he took the first one in the face with three rounds. His head exploded in a pinkish cloud as he dropped. The one next to him stumbled a step before he took four rounds to the chest from Sidonia’s stun pistols and dropped a step away from his dead comrade.
The other soldiers next to the pair unloaded on the group of terrorists. Echos filled the corridor as the rapport of firearms mixed from both sides, each one hoping to down everyone on their enemies side before they lost too many of their brothers. But the Imperial soldiers were trained for this, the terrorists were just a ragtag band as far as fighting men were concerned.
As the bullets and hard light rounds filled the air it felt like time had slowed to a crawl. Tiberius caught a round in the chest that knocked him back and hurt like hell, but he had the vest on, the microgel in the vest absorbed the impact, it felt like he was punched by a man twice Walsh’s size, but it wasn’t enough to fully stop him.
Walsh and Quintus were at his side, they unloaded on the man who’d shot him and his body erupted with plumes of red coming from every bullet wound. The man dropped and there wasn’t enough of him to say he looked like Swiss cheese.
Two of their members were downed by the gunfire from the enemy. Ensigns Victor and Mason took rounds from the terrorists, each one downed from headshots. It only made Captain Sidonia angrier and made her want to end the whole group.
Three men were left, three who laid down their weapons and held their hands outstretched, “Please, mercy! We surrender.” One mane called as he dropped to his knees, the other two followed suit.
“Cap…” Walsh said as she kept her guns trained on the men.
“You will answer for these deaths. You will answer our questions.” She didn’t wait for them to nod in agreement, she just shot them with her sun pistols and dropped the three quickly. “Tie them up, we’ll throw them in the closet.”
Walsh, Tiberius and Quintus each grabbed one of the men and dragged them to the closet, threw them in, unceremoniously, and shut the door.
“Lets keep going, we have to find the device before we can get out of here.” She said as she drove them forwards, drove them to find the scrambler. They moved through the corridors for another five minutes before coming to the engine room, somewhere they’d have to be careful firing any weapons in. But they couldn’t hear anyone which was odd. There should have been a few crewmen here keeping the engine running smoothly.
The conductors, and coils looked to enormous inside. There wasn’t anyone around that they could see, but as Captain Sidonia took them up to one of the catwalks she found the device sitting in the middle of a platform that one of the catwalks connected to. She couldn’t help but feel something was wrong since there was no one around, why would they put a device here and not guard it?
It was about a foot tall, cylindrical, and had three blinking red lights on what she could only assume was the front of it. There were three small spokes that acted as legs to hold it upright and keep it stable.
Tiberius looked at the device and back at the captain, “What do we do now? Disable it? Leave it where it is?”
She answered by shooting the device with both pistols repeatedly. The device sputtered sparks and it dropped sideways to the platform. “We try contacting the First Lieutenant again, see if he’s able to respond.” She pulled out the radio and said “First Lieutenant, are you there? This is Captain Sidonia of fifth squad.”
His voice came over the radio a couple seconds later. “Its good to hear your voice, Sir. Have you apprehended any more terrorists?”
“Three more, we also lost two of our own in doing so.”
There was a pause on the other side of the line before he came back and said, “I’m sorry for your loss Captain, we’ll make sure their bodies are laid to rest.” He was silent for another few seconds before coming back on the radio, “I have great news. The Admiral has received reports that the rest of the ship’s been cleared of borders. I’m sending a few soldiers to you now, where are you exactly?”
She talked to him a few more minutes before they heard boots on the ground and heard someone’s voice call out over the radio.
“Captain Sidonia, we’re friendly.” She motioned to the others and they lowered their weapons.
It was hard going, but they got back to the corridor where they’d lost the two Ensigns and picked up their bodies to carry fireman style, while the new four man fireteam grabbed the three unconscious terrorists and had to fight the urge to kill them for the loyal soldiers that weren’t even at fault, they were just in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
They walked to the brig with all three of the prisoners, all of them wanted to kill the men just to have some sort of justice for their fallen brothers. The brig was just as terrifying as Tiberius remembered and he wished there was something he could do to try to help his friends now. But he couldn’t think of anything, other than just being there for them.
Once the prisoners were locked in their cell, just one, they were forced to deal with three people per cell. And that was per the Admiral’s orders, which really surprised them all.
After they were locked in the cadets took their fallen brothers bodies to the infirmary, there they’d be transferred to their morgue and their bodies sent into space for their funeral. It took a couple hours for the bodies from each side to be gathered up and brought to the morgue for their burial. The cleaning crews were working double time trying to clean up the blood and gore from the pristine walls.
And Tiberius and his bunkmates were back in their room. “I know, this is going to sound crazy but try to sleep at least an hour before we get to our next destination. It’s hard, but it’ll help you process everything. Trust me.” Captain Sidonia told them as she left them to their rest, she hoped there was plenty of time before they reached whatever their next destination was.
—
Since the borders attacked them it had been hell aboard the ship. The Admiral had to send twenty Terran Navy bodies into the void of space for their funerals. He’d seen the effect it had on the men and women as they went about their drills the day following the attack and they were just going through the motions.
Exiting void-space the Integrity arrived at one of the Imperium’s many space stations, the Orion station was one of the largest of it’s kind, and it was only two day’s flight from Jupiter where they’d be picking up the rest of their compliment, and they’d need to find a relay station to message Old Terra and try to get the rest of their crew manifest filled.
It had enough room to allow eight battlecruisers to dock at once, it looked like a spindle with spines protruding from it for the ships to dock. Around the station were a pair of patrol ships that helped anyone who jumped in system to dock safely.
“Transmit Identification credentials now.” Came over the bridge’s coms, along with the station locking onto them and the pair of patrol ships moving in for an escort duty. They were stripped down versions of the Stormraptor fighters the navy used for ship to ship combat.
“This is Fleet Admiral Harcourt aboard the TIN Integrity, we’re requesting a berth and repairs.” He said as he held the coms button on his armrest.
A person came on screen wearing civilian clothes and saluting the Admiral. “Sir, I am Administrator Rhua, I am in charge of this installation, please dock with berth seven and I will see to it your ship gets everything it needs.” He said as he then bowed to the Admiral.
“Thank you Administrator, you’re a credit to the Imperium.” He said, a little bit of brown nosing was never a bad thing when it came to anyone in a position of power. Even one as insignificant as Administrator of a space station.