by John Walker
Rathe cursed and left the control center, jogging down the hallway. When he emerged, he saw several of his men standing at one end of the promenade, examining an airlock. He approached, scanning the area suspiciously. Jordan came closer to meet him, a tall man with thick black hair and a short beard.
“Glad you could make it so fast,” Jordan muttered.
“What’s going on?” Rathe asked. “What’re you all doing over here?”
“Take a look.” Jordan gestured to a smear of blood on the seals around the airlock. He tapped the console to bring up the logs. “It seems the seal malfunctioned and it shows three people were sucked out into space.”
“How could a seal suck people out?” Rathe asked. “Surely the breach had to be bigger to do that. Who’s missing?”
“Harvin, Nichols and Temmer.”
“They’re just gone?”
Jordan gestured to the airlock. “Apparently for good.”
“God damn these mining facilities!” Rathe paced away. “How do we know the thing won’t malfunction again? How’d it even close?”
“Automatic repair systems kicked in,” Jordan explained. “Apparently, it was due for maintenance two weeks ago.”
“Lazy bastards!” One of the other pirates muttered. “Got our boys killed! I say we find the maintenance men and throw them out the airlock!”
“Settle down.” Rathe scowled. “We’re not killing anyone, not with a battlecruiser breathing down our necks. They’re just looking for a reason to come in here and kill us all. So keep your cool or we’re all done.”
“What do you mean battleship?” Another crewman stepped forward. Rathe didn’t know him personally but had seen him around. Beady, blue eyes, shaved head, dusty facial hair…he’d struck him as a bit of a whiner. “From the Alliance?”
Rathe shook his head. “Worse. Earth.”
“Damn it…” Jordan breathed. “What’re we going to do?”
“I’ve stalled them for now. Thantis is getting the system ready to load us up quicker. Hopefully, we’ve got all the Ulem ready?”
“Our men have been packing it up since we arrived,” Jordan said. “We should be good.”
“Excellent. I’ll keep the Earth ship from bothering us you guys focus on keeping this place secure. We’ll be out of here soon and rich enough to retire if we’re smart about it. So stay calm, right?”
The others agreed and went about their business but Jordan walked with Rathe back toward the control center.
“I’m concerned about this place,” Jordan kept his voice low. “It’s too big to have locked down completely. There might be a whole pocket of people we didn’t find.”
“Didn’t you go over the personnel records?”
“Not entirely, they’re long.”
Rathe rubbed his eyes. “Lord, Jordan. Do it right. Get the personnel records and take a roll call. If we’re missing someone, we need to know. Start with the security people if you can. They’re the only ones we have to really worry about. The rest of these miners aren’t exactly dangerous, right?”
“Yeah, I’ll get on it…but it’ll take a while.”
“Then stop stalling and move out.” Rathe shook his head. “Any more mistakes like that and we might as well all throw ourselves out of airlocks. I’ll be in the control center. Let me know if you find anything.”
***
Ander’s checkpoint gave him access to a wide variety of security stations throughout the facility. He picked up the entry of the Earth ship just as it arrived and when the pirates found the ‘malfunctioned’ airlock, he covertly tapped into the communication center there, listening to every word.
They bought my malfunction trick. Thank the fates!
He wanted to scan the facility to gain a good idea of the numbers they were facing, how many pirates they had to deal with but it had to be subtle. If someone caught on, they could trace his signal and then, he’d be done. The bolder his tactics became, the better chance he had of discovery and ultimately, he greater his chance of dying.
The Earth ship is here. Let them take control of the situation. They’ve got this.
But Ander didn’t want to give up completely. He knew he could help them somehow. Even if he had to abandon his checkpoint and hide out somewhere else, he needed to grant them some intelligence. His mind made up, he initiated the facility wide scan, telling the computer to generate a report of all unauthorized personnel aboard.
A bar appeared at the bottom of the screen showing a percent completed. It indicated five minutes before it finished. Providing no one was paying attention in the control center, it would be finished before they could stop him. The pirates didn’t seem to be entirely prepared to occupy the station properly, they just wanted to steal.
That gave Ander a small advantage.
Even military forces had a hard time occupying unfriendly territory, especially when the space was big. This station was no different. They didn’t know it as well and that meant there were plenty of places to hide. If the security forces hadn’t folded, they might’ve been able to take the station back but they proved gullible.
Buying that the pirates would destroy the station made no sense. Why jump into a sector only to blow up the only thing of value there? The risk and time wasted would never fly for any resource conscious group and criminals had to worry about where they’d find fuel, armaments and supplies.
Ander considered the situation. The next step involved reaching out to the Earth ship in a way that was private. A coded channel would work but voice might require too much bandwidth to cover up. Ander snapped his fingers. He could use one of the local satellites to bounce a signal, enabling voice with a slight delay.
Tapping at the console, he cursed under his breath. The satellites appeared to be offline…no, malfunctioning. Wow, can this get any worse? Back to the coded message method I suppose.
Ander drafted a simple message: security officer reaching out to Earth vessel. I am attempting to gather intel. Please respond. I’ll have data soon. Once he finished, he encoded it and hit send. The computer calculated it would be received in less than ten minutes. How long it took them to get back to him entirely depended on their tech officer.
I hope he’s a good one…None of us has time for anything less.
Ander sat back and tried desperately not to fret. Everything he could possibly do was underway. Waiting, painful as it felt, was his only course of action. He watched the percentage bar of his scan and willed it to hurry. The act wasn’t productive but it kept him busy for the several minutes he needed to sit idle.
***
Olly finished his task and watched as the satellites appeared offline. A moment later, they began jamming scans in the area. He already programmed their equipment to compensate. Once he confirmed the station was down, he triple checked his work. A lot of lives were on the line and he didn’t want sloppy work to get them killed.
“Captain, I’ve taken their scans offline,” Olly announced. “The satellites are working as expected. If they have someone on board that can fix them, they might be up in an hour or so…but I doubt they can do it remotely. I don’t even know if I could at this point.”
“Great work,” Gray said. “Launch those marines. Have them hit the facility immediately.”
Commander Everly began giving the order when Agatha spoke up. “Oliver, I’m picking up a strange transmission from the station…it seems to be a coded text message. Can you confirm before I accept it?”
Olly tapped away at the console. A coded text message came through, a hastily packaged one at that. He scanned it for any malicious software and it showed clean. “Looks okay to me,” he said. “Can you decode it?”
“Easily,” Agatha replied. “Give me a moment…”
He turned and watched her work, her fingers flying over the console with practiced ease. A moment later, she scowled at her screen then turned toward the rest of them. “Captain, I’ve received a coded message from a security officer on the station. The
y say they’re trying to gather intel for us and they’d like a response.”
Gray turned to Adam. “The insider.”
Adam nodded. “Better answer him.”
“Go ahead and acknowledge the transmission and let him know that we’re waiting for any more information.” Gray paused. “Have him identify himself. I want to make sure we’re talking to someone who is actually on our side.”
“I find it unlikely that the pirates would try such a tactic,” Adam said. “I mean, do you really believe they’d try to fool us with this kind of transmission? And how would they know about the insider unless…he…got caught…”
“Exactly,” Gray replied. “We’ll need a way to verify that he’s not been broken. Olly, can you get on our briefing information and work with Agatha to find a way to verify this guy? I’d like to be open but we can’t be stupid about it.”
“On it, sir.” Olly brought up the files on Ander Yin’Dran. The man fought for the Alliance for a long while. His service record. They wouldn’t have quizzed him about that. If he’s being held hostage, we can ask about his commanders. Someone random. If he answers right, we should be able to trust him. “I’m sending you something, Agatha. Ask him about his second CO.”
“Got it,” Agatha replied. “Sending challenge back now. I’ll let you know when I’ve received the answer.”
“Clea,” Gray said, “how’re you doing on the battleship?”
“I can’t get a solid connection through their shields,” Clea said, “but I did get the computer to send me a status. They don’t seem to have modified it at all. Once I get our sensors tuned properly to break through their defenses, I should be able to take control. However, this status update is pretty old…it doesn’t prove I won’t run into obstacles.”
“Work with Olly as you need to,” Gray said. “Are the marines in motion yet?”
“They are, sir,” Adam said. “But I think we should only get them close. If this security guard can help at all, he might pick a good place for them to board.”
“Agreed. Agatha, let us know when we can trust that guy.” Gray returned to his seat. “I want this place locked down as soon as possible.”
“Revente is requesting permission to launch fighters,” Adam announced. “They’ve been on ready thirty. Might help if we get them out there just in case.”
“Do it quietly,” Gray said. “Keep them close to the ship. I don’t want to escalate this engagement.”
Olly went back to work, ensuring the satellite malfunction kept the sensors down. The enemy wouldn’t be able to pick up the fighters outside visual and the Behemoth was far enough away to make that unlikely. Still, he wanted to stack things in their favor to the best of his ability. He sent out massive sensor sweeps, immense energy scans which should look like the Behemoth was attempting to overcome the satellite malfunction.
At least that way, it would seem like they weren’t responsible for blinding the station. Hopefully, the marines would make short work of the attack and they’d have the place locked down before it mattered. After his time on the Tam’Dral and what happened on the research facility, he had confidence.
It was just a matter of time.
Chapter 5
Jordan burst into the command center. “All our sensors are down,” he said. “The damn satellites malfunctioned and are causing total havoc on all our systems. We’ve been hit hard by this. Both our ships are reporting the same issue.”
“Would it affect the Earth ship too?” Rathe asked. “Or I assume you think they had something to do with it.”
“Probably,” Jordan said, “on both counts. They SHOULD be impacted…honestly, there’s enough evidence to suggest the satellites were overwhelmed by their jump. I was able to get the last diagnostic log from the things and some key components were damaged. Their tech person would have to be pretty amazing to make something like that happen.”
“I wouldn’t put it past them.” Rathe cursed. “Okay, let me reach out and see what’s going on.”
He hit the button and tried to hail the Earth vessel, hoping they wouldn’t hear the anxiety in his voice. “Listen up, we have some demands.”
Captain Atwell answered him a moment later, “what changed your mind?”
“We’ve got some time to kill so why not ask for a few things? We want ransom for these people. A lot of it. I know you’ve got spare parts on board. Send some of them over. Specifically, for your pulse engines. We need them for our own ship.”
“Out of the question,” Captain Atwell replied. “Besides, I doubt you’d let us drop them off in your hangar anyway.”
“Just jettison them. We’ll pick them up after you leave.”
“Or?”
Rathe hesitated. “We’ll start killing the hostages.”
“The moment one hostage dies, we take the station by force. We’ll hit it with everything we’ve got and there won’t be a single pirate left standing,” Captain Atwell paused for a moment, “how’s that sound for a deal?”
Rathe muted the line and looked at Jordan. “These people are insane!”
“They probably mean it too. I’ve heard they don’t negotiate well.”
“I know for a fact they don’t but I didn’t think they’d get that hard.” Rathe hummed. “I need to buy some time.”
“Tell them that you’ll give them a couple hostages in return for letting us pack our stuff up and leave.” Jordan shrugged. “That’ll be easier to get than any ransom.”
“I like it.” Rathe took the line off mute. “I’ve got a better idea. We’ll release some hostages to you if you’ll give us time to pack our ship up for departure. How’s that?”
“When will you hand these people over?” Captain Atwell asked. “And how will they be delivered?”
“There’re shuttles here,” Rathe said. “We’ll let a couple of hostages fly one over to you.”
“Let me think about it.” Captain Atwell killed the line and Rathe cursed again.
“That means they’re trying to do something besides work with us,” Rathe muttered. “What’re we going to do?”
“Hurry,” Jordan replied. “And get the hell out of here with as much booty as we can get. Where’s that Thantis prick?”
“I don’t know…I figured he’d be back by now.”
“We’d better find him. He hasn’t given us the automated loaders yet.”
“Okay, but be careful. God knows what’s going on in this place but I can tell you this: I already feel like it was a big mistake. For all we know, Thantis had an ‘accident’ like those others. I’m not interested in finding out what it’s like to be sucked out of a damn airlock. Let’s not add dying to our list of catastrophes.”
***
Ander finished his scan of the station and let out a sigh of relief. There were thirty-six pirates on the station spread out through different parts. Most of them were relegated to watching the hostages but a large number gathered in the hangar where Ulem tended to be loaded up for shipping.
Then there was a lone pirate deep in one of the shafts built into the station. Long before Ander joined the crew, the station tethered a massive asteroid to the complex and had been mining it for a while. Supposedly, it had some of the richest deposits of Ulem ever discovered but it was dangerous down there. Because of the concentration of the element, miners had to be very careful. An explosion would be catastrophic.
Ander contemplated the screen, scowling at the news. What was one person doing down there? They couldn’t take the raw materials straight from the walls and pirates sure weren’t going to start mining. He had to find out but before he could, he needed to talk to the Earth ship.
They wrote back to him and asked who his second CO was. Ander smiled at the memory and replied to them that it was a man named Grissem Hin’Dahl. He also included the number of pirates they were facing and let them know he needed to check on something. Though the man might just be slacking off and trying to find a place not to work, Ander figured it was something much
more nefarious.
He sent his message and left his station, letting his gun lead the way. Luckily, the shaft was close to his position, or at least, relatively so. He could take a ladder down two floors then hurry down a hall to the entrance. From there, he wouldn’t even have to go inside to see what was going on. The security cameras would do the rest.
Ander slid down the ladder and jarred his ankle when he landed. Luckily, he was able to walk it off after a few steps but the fear he’d injured himself kept his heart racing as he began down the tunnel. This part of the station always creeped him out. The darkness felt oppressive and he heard the creaking of metal from what he imagined was extreme strain on the frame of the mine.
No one was around as he arrived at the massive door, which had been closed. The person inside must’ve known how to handle the computers if he pulled that off. Ander tapped into the security console and used his password. An image appeared on the screen of a man working on one of the mining machines, attaching something to its frame.
He zoomed in and gasped. Though he hadn’t seen that particular variety, he knew the man was planting a bomb. A quick scan indicated he’d already planted several. He plans to blow up the entire facility! Is this what the pirates want? To cover their escape or something? It makes no sense!
Why waste all those resources? And how could they justify murdering all the hostages? Ander needed to get the Earth personnel aboard as soon as possible to stop this insanity. If they didn’t get there soon, there’d be countless dead, families! Ander rushed back to his security station as fast as he could, panting as he typed in a new message.
They’ll get this one after the last but better late than never…and they have to hurry. Hell, I need to find a good entry point for them. Ander started scanning the station for a boarding solution, somewhere they could gain a foothold without having to engage in a firefight. Then we can clear this place of those bastards…and stop them from blowing up my home.
***