He looks uncomfortable. “My crew are well trained, Ma’am. There's no need for you to—”
I hold up my hand. I know what Danielli’s inferring, so I call him on it. “You don’t think I should be telling them how to do their jobs?”
He stops and turns back to face me. “No, Ma’am. If you want me and my crew to back you, let us work our own playbook.”
I break out into a smile. “I fully intend to, Danielli. But first, I want them to know they can trust me, too.”
The wiry sergeant sums me up for a few moments, then turns back down the passageway.
The crew are not in the mess, but in their quarters, already in space gear and checking each other’s equipment. They turn almost as one when Danielli enters, and in one flourish, they simultaneously salute him. “Ready for combat, sir,” they say. In unison.
“Stand down,” Danielli says. He introduces me to all four, and I note the looks of curiosity, especially at my height. None look to harbor any resentment, as far as I can see. I hope Danielli is right when he told me they voted as one.
“Captain India Jackson.” I glance at each of them, holding a smile and brief eye contact. “I wanted to meet each of you in person, and make you an offer.” I see Danielli look sideways at me, surprised, then resume his poker-face. He leans against the nearest bulkhead.
I continue. “From what I can understand, we are possibly the hottest property in the galaxy right now, if only they knew it. We’ve just found the Constellation.”
I wait for the looks of surprise to fade before I continue.
“We’re simultaneously sitting on a bomb; a 3He-power goldmine; a weapon sufficiently powerful to bring the Blood Empire to its knees ... and levels of danger unknown to me and potentially inestimable. I understand you are paid soldiers. If anyone is unwilling to continue, then you’ll be sent on your way in the next Escape Capsule. Once I have funds, I’ll pay out your job quote two-fold as promised, no questions asked.” I wait for a response. There is none. “Does anyone wish to take this option?”
I watch Danielli. He does not shift, nor does he look at his team of men. And one woman, I now realize. Jordi was right. Short black hair and a pixie-face, with what looks like a lithe body under that space gear. No wonder he wanted to “assist” her. She catches me assessing her and speaks in a low drawl.
“With respect, Captain Jackson, we haven’t been advised of the alternative.”
Danielli was right. They do know how to take care of themselves.
“What’s your name, uh ...” I look at Danielli.
“’Soldier.’ We all respond to that.” Danielli has the slightest hint of a smile on his face. He’s waiting to see how I handle this. I incline my head.
“Thanks.” I turn back to the woman, who is actually grinning at me. “Your name, soldier?”
“Plexi, Captain.” she says.
“No family name?”
Her grin vanishes. “No family, Ma’am.”
Jeepers. I shift my mass to one side. “Apologies, Plexi.”
I clear my throat and look at all of them. “You asked about the alternative? Before I present you my offer, you need a little background.” I tell them of the Constellation and my apparent status as its presumed captain. I explain my quandary, and Sloper’s treatment of the Rykkans ... and of my brother. Then I ask Aktip via the commPanel to run a holo showing our recent survey of the Constellation, including the missile attack.
I pause to let it all sink in.
“My plan is to investigate the battlecruiser in person, gain control and work out how in hell we can hide a moon-sized cruiser while I establish who to return it to.” I take a deep breath. “I’m not certain that this isn’t still just a trap. Anyone with me will be risking their life. But here’s my offer: All my life I’ve traded 3He and weaponry. Whatever happens, I know I’m possibly the best person in the Sector to get a seriously good deal for giving up the Constellation. Well into trillions of credits, maybe a quad. Whatever I get, I’m willing to share equally among every man, woman and Rykkan on this ship.” I mention nothing about needing help to rescue Mitch. No point introducing another complication this early into the relationship.
The soldiers all grin and look at each other. Still no one speaks. Plexi coughs. I raise my eyes at her.
“Captain Jackson, you said our galaxy is doomed if the Constellation falls into the wrong hands. What if the person with the wrong hands turns out to be the highest bidder?”
My ploy is burst. Plexi is right. The Constellation is not for sale at any price—to the wrong buyer. I try to recover.
“Um, yes. Good question. I would try to find another way to reimburse you, because under those circumstances, the Constellation is not—”
Plexi interrupts. “Ma’am, we’re used to hearing false promises. Be very careful what you say, and what you expect to deliver.”
I smile. Plexi has me cornered in exactly the same way I would, if I were her. I straighten and stand tall to address everyone, not just my pixie-faced interrogator.
“You are right. The Constellation cannot be used as a tool for someone to play power games in the Sector. We’ve already suffered enough since the last war ended, and I will not allow it to be used merely as a ship for profit or power. I will stake my life on it. Some things are more important than money.”
I look Plexi in the eye. “Does that answer your question?”
“Captain, I’m pretty sure I speak for my squad when I say we are with you all the way.” I hear an “Aye, Captain,” from all the others, including Danielli.
The woman launches forward with precision and arrives in front of me, holding out her hand. “Corporal Plexi at your service, Ma’am.”
“They speak true, Madam Captain,” I hear Aktip say in my private commchannel.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I remember that two of Danielli’s squad have pilot training, so I leave one of them—Ortiz, the one with the bloodied nose and still suffering embarrassment—at the helm, along with Aktip on comms. I have my remote datapad with me just in case I need to access my ship, but not because I don’t trust Ortiz—or Aktip for that matter.
Danielli, Plexi, a really big guy called Herg, and I, each take a podPlate after suiting up. Although we could spacewalk by cable over to the Constellation, I figure the podPlates will give us way more mobility, given the size of the battlecruiser.
I step up on my plate, and grab the control bars. “Ready?” I say over the comm channel as I look at the others. They nod, and we propel ourselves out of the airlock and across open space to the Constellation.
I almost lose control of my plate as I see the cruiser through my helmet’s faceplate with naked vision for the first time. If I wasn’t physically seeing it for myself, I would think its vastness incomprehensible.
“You wanna go in through the drive region?” It’s Plexi, who has scooted up next to me. To those left in the salvage vessel, we must look like a row of four ants sliding on microcards across a puddle of black ink, up against the looming bulk of the giant we’re about to board. I sense the tension in my stomach, and focus on my breath instead.
“Captain?”
“Yes. But before we head all the way in, I’ll login again from a physical commPanel. Just to be sure.”
We “land” at the edge of the enormous open-cut wound at the Constellation’s stern. Our magboots clamp us to the ship’s exterior and we leave our podPlates floating just above the hull. I’ve deliberately touched down some meters from the edge of the immense man-made incision, where my schematic shows a commPanel. I spy it and head over.
“Wait—”
It’s Danielli.
“Let me lead. Just in case.”
I motion him past me and he approaches the panel. He signals the all clear, and protects me as I kneel. I wear a commglove, enabling fingerprint recognition—even DNA if requested, but it isn’t. The panel flashes green a few times, then solid. I hear a voice in my ear.
<
So far, so good.
“Disable local security. Four crew members returning to the ship, including Captain Jackson.”
<
“Voice recog requested.”
<
One by one my team identify themselves by speaking into the panel. The panel flickers.
<
I look at Danielli.
“Wilcox was my family name.” It’s Plexi. Her voice is strained.
Danielli speaks up. “Captain—”
I wave him away. “It’s okay. You should see my record.”
I see him shrug in the bulk of his suit, and I turn back to the panel, though I’m not entirely sure why I’m looking at it. The ship’s computer can communicate perfectly well through my headset. “Authorization for override confirmed.”
<
I look at the others, the massive hull with its frequent clusters of weaponry extending behind them, silent and deadly, glinting gray-black against a sparsely starred backdrop.
I move to step back on top of my podPlate, but again Danielli holds me back. “We should go in first, Captain.” I nod and Danielli, Plexi and Herg position their podPlates in front of mine. Once I’m aboard, we all descend the blackness in silence, our headbeams sweeping from side to side as the black closes in over us.
“We’ll follow the drone’s path. It’s on your schematic.” I say, watching the others in front pausing at every opening, one on watch, one sweeping light into the unoccupied rabbit warrens, and the other covering us all. We all have laserRifles, but I wish I had more. Cannons preferably.
Our descent through the gloom is slow, but uneventful. Again I notice the lack of any evidence of a firefight: no charred walls, no old, bloodied stains. No debris or abandoned weaponry, let alone decomposed bodies—or perfectly preserved bodies in the freezing vacuum for that matter.
The scale of the ship alone is intimidating. The hole cut in the drive bay is as deep as a tall skyscraper, and as dark as the blackest mine. I stop to engage a commPanel and ask the ship to turn on the lights.
<
I see no emergency lighting until we arrive at the mouth of the passageway the drone entered. There is a faint light strip on either side of the deck. Or is it the overhead? It’s not until I see lettering on the passageway’s bulkhead that I realize it is the deck. The lettering says C126-A.
“Do you wish to proceed, Ma’am?” Danielli asks over the comms.
Despite my growing unease, I know we must get into the ship proper; find the helmroom and try to work out what we can—or can’t—do. Though my nose so far tells me it doesn’t matter where we go, the outcome will be the same. This is a ghost ship, and it’s going nowhere. “Head in, Danielli. Let’s find the drone first. Stop when we reach it.”
I float up next to the sergeant and together we swoop down into the eerie passageway side-by-side on our plates. Plexi and Herg follow.
“Any thoughts so far, Danielli?” I ask.
He continues forward next to me, stopping from time-to-time at any airlock or door, ever watchful. He answers without looking at me. “No plasma missiles. Maybe we’re too small to trigger them.”
“Or maybe whoever fired them is waiting somewhere else?” I think I hear him shrug.
“We’d pick up the energy traces. No, my guess is that your Captain’s status has shut down any autodefense.”
“But?”
He stops in front of an open door, pushes it open with one hand while pointing the rifle in with the other. “There are never any buts, Ma’am. Only vigilance. Just because one threat has gone away, it doesn’t mean there isn’t another round the corner. But it does seem strange. There’s no sign of any—”
“Life. Or that there once was life here,” I say.
Danielli says nothing and beckons me on. We descend the ladder to the next deck. I can’t imagine the number of decks and ladders in a cruiser of this size. Then again, with full power running, I guess we’d all be using the gravtubes.
We drop a dozen more levels and Danielli stops again. He points up the passageway. “Drone should be up there.”
“What’s left of it.”
The four of us advance more slowly now, though I’m not sure why. It’s like as a kid, walking through a pitch black forest, expecting an ugly giant to come to life at any minute.
The drone is split in two, burned out and lifeless, both parts skewed away from each other in mid-air where they had come to rest. Its extension arm drags on the deck.
There’s no point in picking over the pieces, so I tell Danielli to move on. We emerge into a long, much wider passageway, with multiple doors on either side.
“Looks like flight crew assembly points,” Danielli says. “We must be heading to one of the Constellation’s hangars.”
Plexi is looking at a schematic on her plate’s pad. “Yeah, got it, right here.”
Herg opens the bulkhead door at the end of the oversized passageway ... and we stop. We emerge into a massive hangar. The emergency lighting is barely enough to see that the space is huge.
And almost completely empty. We sweep our suit headbeams around. Nothing. Just one z-wing barely visible in the dark, laying in partial disassembly on the far side of the cavernous space. It’s the first sign of anything left behind I’ve seen so far. I try to imagine what it must have been like in full battle. Hundreds of fighter craft of all descriptions; squads in formation; military organization. In the dark, I can just make out the hangar’s exit and oversized lock to my left.
Danielli looks over at me.
I shrug. “Nothing to see here. But I have a very bad feeling.”
“You’re not the only one,” Plexi says. “But let’s look on the bright side.”
“What?” I say.
She grins at me through her faceplate. “I’ve found the armories on the schematic. Reckon we should go get us some bigger toys. Might help negate that bad feeling.” She says negate with an accent: knee-gate.
I like Plexi.
“Lead the way.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A few minutes on and we’re in what I estimate must be the middle of the ship. I wonder why the armories are here, and not in a more convenient spot. Danielli seems to sense my question. “My guess is the cruiser is designed to be impregnable. Looks like these armories can be sealed in. There are probably gravtubes to distribute to the hangars and turrets.”
There seems to be a dozen or more doors to various weapons stores leading off the passageway. I peer through the viewport of Armory One. It is empty. Even in the dim emergency lighting, we can see it’s been stripped bare. I open the door, just in case, but a quick sweep over with our helmet beams reveals only exposed bulkheads and empty racking.
“Nothing to see here,” Plexi says, turning to go, but I put my gloved hand on her arm.
“Don’t you think that’s odd? Why would there be absolutely nothing left?”
She stops, confused. “Yes, Ma’am. That’s correct. In all the armories I’ve seen, even those cleaned out for restocking, there’s always something left. Straps, old shells, empty battery casings. Plasti-crates. But you’re right. This is different. Gives me the heebie-jeebies.” She jerks her head to the exit. “Come on. Maybe we’ll get lucky in number two.”
And we do. Apart from the lone broken down z-wing, Armory Two is the first evidence I see of the Constellation’s fitout. Plexi squeals when her headbeam reveals an entire bulkhead of racked weaponry. She rushes over and tries to remove a handheld plasmacannon from its fixture. The codepad next to it flashes red, and I hear a muted alarm, which quickly fades. The emergency power is clearly l
imited.
I float over and place my glove on the glowing pad. It turns green and Plexi rips the cannon from its rack. She looks at me, and I can see her eyes gleaming even through her faceplate. “Thanks, Captain.” I leave Plexi to check the weapon over and move next to Danielli, who is pulling some laserwhips out of a rack. Evidently their security doesn’t require captain-level permissions.
I train my beam over the equipment. There’s more than enough to equip our small group. “I wonder why this armory still has weapons?” It’s more of a rhetorical question, but Danielli answers anyway.
“There may have been a small team left onboard. Running the shutdown procedures. Maybe the same folks involved in removing the drive. Captain, we should try the helmroom. You might be able to access the ship’s log directly.”
I nod. I’ve had no luck with any remote requests, which was one of my motivations for boarding the hulk. But curiosity would have brought me here anyway. What captain wouldn’t want to inspect their vessel? Especially when it’s the galaxy’s baddest battlecruiser. “Let’s kit ourselves with what we can carry to the max. We can come back for the rest later.”
“I like the way you think, Ma’am.” I hear the amusement in Danielli’s voice pipe into my helmet.
“Plexi?”
“Yes, Captain?”
“Can you get us to the helmroom from here?”
“Sure thing, Ma’am. May we clear Armory Three first?”
What the heck. Probably empty anyway. “Sure thing. Head on in.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
For some reason, the emergency lighting in Armory Three is out. Though it contradicts what we’ve seen up to now, perhaps after four years unattended, parts of the Constellation need minor maintenance.
I follow the others into the darkened store. “Danielli, can you light up—”
“Captain Jackson.” Aktip breaks into the comms. “Captain Jackson. I am again sensing something odd and we are discovering electromagnetic traces from the center of the ship. Captain, do you copy?”
Constellation (Blood Empire Book 1) Page 8