by PP Corcoran
“Sorry Yoshi you're not finished with that yet. The launch bay doors for the Comms drone are stuck. Probably damaged by the fire in engineering I need you and one other to go and free them so we can get the drone away and get some help out to us.”
Yoshi paused in removing his bulky suit and then started shrugging it back on as his brow wrinkled in thought. “Either the hatch controls are fried or the hatch mechanism itself has been warped by the heat of the fire. I may have to cut the hatch away and release the drone manually but I don’t see another way around it.”
“Do whatever's needed Yoshi but the sooner we get the drone away the sooner we get some help.”
“Understood captain. I’ll let you know what I find.” And with that Yoshi cut the link thinking that it never rains but it pours.
#
Yoshi regarded the hatch in front of him and sometimes wished that he wasn't always right. Just as he'd thought; the hatch covering the communications drone bay was partially opened and jammed. Most likely the bay door rams had suffered catastrophic damage. The drone was intact, a minor miracle.
No sense hanging about out here I may as well get to work, thought Yoshi, as he carefully held the plasma cutting torch at arms length and ignited it. The flame was designed to cut through anything up to and including battle armour, any mistake and it would make very short work of his suit. That mistake would take Yoshi's day from bad to fatal in a heartbeat.
He'd only been working for a few minutes and already the plasma torch had easily cut through one of the four rams that operated the bay doors. Yoshi looked up to ensure that the crewman with him was out of the arc of the plasma torch while he moved to reposition himself to start on the next ram. He was confronted with the crewman’s back.
“Hey Browne are you with me?”
Yoshi got no reply. He turned the plasma torch off and secured it to the hull, by the bay doors, using the magnetic strap. He walked the several feet to where the crewman stood. As he edged closer he noticed the small hole in the back of her helmet.
“Oh God no!” Yoshi moved as quickly as he could, in his cumbersome suit, to check Julie from the front and was confronted by another neat hole in the face plate. The suit encased a now dead crewman.
"No!" Despair filled Yoshi as the rational part of his brain tried to figure out what had happened. Had a micro meteorite hit the hapless crewman? If so shouldn’t the face plate be completely or at least partially shattered? Movement over Julie's now statuesque shoulder caught Yoshi’s eye. What the…
The short laser blast from the rifle of the armour suited figure passed right through Yoshi’s chest.
The shot destroyed the integrity of the suit, the electronics controlling the magnetic boots failed, the atmosphere rushed out, the sum result was that Yoshi was lifted clear of the Happy Wanderer's hull. Yoshi's brain, thankfully, began to shut down just as he saw dozens of armoured figures scurrying towards the open airlock and enter his ship.
#
The screaming alarm on Lorna’s console drew all eyes to it. She silenced it and briefly interrogated the computer to confirm its readings. She didn’t raise her head as she shouted,
“Dutchman! Dutchman!" it was the call that no captain wanted to hear, "I have a crewman off the hull and moving away at speed. Suit beacon is coming in strong and I’m getting good telemetry. Bio readings show…” Lorna’s voice faded as her throat closed over. My God, No! Not Yoshi! she slouched in her seat, dropped her head into her hands and sobbed uncontrollably.
Richard left his seat and gently moved the sobbing young woman to one side, the captain's, worst fears were realised; on the display a red circled icon with the name "MARONA" flashed.
The fire damage at the rear of the ship meant Yoshi had already been over 200 metres from the Happy Wanderer's hull and moving away at 40 kph when the midship sensors picked it up. It didn't matter anyway, the suit's bio sensors showed that Yoshi was already dead.
Richard's eyes fixed on the flashing icon of his dead first officer as he addressed Robards. “Robards suit up. Browne is still out there with the bio sensors down we don't know her status, she may need your help.”
As Robards stood to comply the bridge doors opened. Richard looked up and was confronted by the sight of a group of armoured figures rushing onto the bridge.
Robards reacted faster than his captain, he lunged for the nearest intruder only to be viciously beaten into unconsciousness with a few swings of a rifle butt. As Robards fell to the deck Richard instinctively placed himself between his Comms officer and the invaders. An uneasy standoff held for what seemed an age, it was broken only when a commanding figure entered the bridge.
This one was different, the entire left arm of his armoured suit was painted red and a strange symbol adorned his chest plate. It looked to Richard to be a black circle which covered the entire area of the chest with a red X the size of a man's hand in the middle. It held an ugly looking pistol loosely in his right hand.
The remaining intruders parted like a wave in front of him. Could this one be the leader? Richard's brain finally caught up, as he drank in the shape and colours of the armour, recognition slowly dawned. Images of these armoured suits had been carried by every media channel throughout the Commonwealth.
Richard furtively glanced at the large red button protected by the clear plastic cover on the arm of his command chair. The button that would purge all the navigation computers on board the Happy Wanderer denying an enemy the locations of the Commonwealth home systems. Richard tried to calculate the time it would take to get to the chair before the intruders either cut him down or beat him to unconsciousness, like the bleeding Robards.
The alien commander caught Richard's furtive gaze and followed it's target, the captain's chair, it turned back to Richard, lifted his right hand and without hesitation shot Richard and his communications officer with two easy jerks of it's armoured fingers.
‘The Others’ were in command of the Happy Wanderer and it's navigation computer. 'The Others' had every coordinate of every world known to man.
###
About the Author
PP Corcoran is a veteran of the British Army. His day job in security allows him to write short stories and novels. He has work appearing or forthcoming in amazon kindle and other ebook outlets including The Drake Equation: Discovery of the Saiph, The Drake Equation: Search for the Saiph and Ghost Soldiers: The Province. Discovery of the Saiph is his first book.
When he's not writing, he loves to ski; camp in the wilds of the UK; visit his family in Scotland and rest at home with his wife, their two large dogs and one very old cranky cat called Minnie.
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Other books by this author
Please visit your favorite ebook retailer to discover other books by PP Corcoran:
Military Science Fiction
The Drake Equation Book 2: Search for the Saiph
The Drake Equation Book 3: Hunting the Saiph (coming Autumn 2014)
Military Thriller Fiction (short stories)
Ghost Solders Volume 1: The Province
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