The Chosen Race (Space Empires Book 2)

by Caleb Selby

  “I’ll lead my team to the command tower and secure it while Melisi will lead her team to the aft engineering room and secure that. Once we are positive those objectives are secure, we’ll stand down and offer our services to the Defiant crew and engineers to help them install the secondary communications system and get their ship back to working order. Got it?”

  “Sir, yes, Sir!”

  “Alright then. Gear up!”

  The squad struggled in the cramped ship to prime their weapons, mount their packs, secure their armor and put on their helmets.

  Carter poked his head back in the cockpit. “How are we doing honey?”

  Melisi shook her head. “First of all, I’m not your honey. Second of all, the morons aren’t responding to my request for docking rights.”

  “Well their transmission systems are down...honey,” Carter said.

  She rolled her eyes. “I know their comm is down genius!” she retorted. “But the docking bay transmitters run on a separate system. They should be able to respond to me, regardless of the status of the main Comm tower.”

  “So what are our options then?” asked Carter.

  “I guess we are going to have to blow a hole in her,” Melisi said, as she began to scan the Defiant’s hull for a suitable spot.

  “Drezden is going to kill us if we mess up his ship,” Carter replied.

  “He’ll have to get over it!” Melisi snapped.

  “How about there,” Carter said a moment later, pointing to a spot amidships atop the main fuselage. “That will leave the smallest mark and it’s about halfway between both of our objectives.”

  “Got it,” said Melisi as she initiated an arc maneuver to bring the boarding ship slowly to the underbelly of the Defiant.

  It was tricky, approaching the chosen entrance site, but Melisi was a very experienced pilot and capably guided the craft exactly where she intended. She brought it in as close as she could before firing piercing clamper cables into the Defiant’s hull, and then reeling them in; thereby pulling the boarding ship toward the destroyer until they were flush with each other.

  “We’re good to go Captain!” she announced as she walked out of the cockpit to begin gearing up herself.

  Carter nodded and yanked down a lever near the rear of the craft. The boarding ship shook in response to the controlled explosion that blasted a hole into the Defiant’s outer hull. Carter looked at a display panel next to the lever. A small diagram of a ship started to flash green. “We have a positive breach!” Carter called out. “Activate air-seals!” he shouted.

  Melisi turned back toward the cockpit and slammed a button on the main panel, sealing the hull breach and entry shaft from space causing the boarding ship, and the Defiant to become as one vessel.

  The team was very awake now. They hadn’t had to breach a vessel in quite awhile and it was always a very tense experience. One wrong move and the seal would break and the boarding team would experience the effects of unbridled negative pressure, not a pleasant experience by all accounts.

  The team held their collective breaths when Carter opened the hatch on the floor and did not relax until it was apparent that the ships were indeed conjoined correctly.

  Carter knelt down at the opening and peered through the newly formed shaft that now connected the two ships. It was dusty and dark, typical of a freshly blasted shaft. He pressed a tiny button on his harness that turned on his helmet’s light rods.

  “See anything?” Radford, one of the members of his team, asked peering over Carter’s shoulder.

  “Nope. It’s pretty cluttered in there though. The debris hasn’t settled yet,” answered Carter as he mounted his heavy lydeg on his back and withdrew his pistol. He pressed a button on the inside of the hatch that lowered a flimsy ladder down the shaft. He tucked his pistol into his belt and then lowered himself into it.

  “Once I give the ok, follow me quickly and quietly. Remember, until I say otherwise, this ship is under hostile takeover. Use caution!”

  With that, Carter quickly descended the ladder until he reached a very low crawl space between the main outer hull of the Defiant and the ceiling of the first interior level. He quickly glanced around and spotted a maintenance access panel and crawled on his belly toward it, being careful not to get his harness or pack caught on anything in the narrow space. When he reached the panel he was relieved to see that there was a release lever on the top that didn’t require a security code. He slowly pulled it open, releasing the spring-loaded section. His strong arms held the panel firm so it wouldn’t bounce back and slam loudly. After slowly lowering the panel, he stuck his head down the access point and looked around.

  The lights from his helmet pierced through the darkness of the room. It appeared to be a standard officer’s quarters judging from the size and furnishings. Carter stealthily lowered himself into the room, went down on one knee and grabbed for his pistol, which he primed and pointed, at the door.

  “Clear,” he said into his transmitter after looking around and making sure that nobody was home, who would be scared to death if they suddenly woke up and saw an entire squad of heavily armed Raiders in their room.

  One by one the others lowered themselves into the darkened room, drawing their respective weapons as soon as their feet hit the floor. The lights on the sides of their helmets were all lit and looked like many pairs of glowing alien eyes shinning in the dark.

  Melisi was the last to come down. As she appeared in the access shaft opening, Radford offered his hand to help her down. She snubbed his offer, offended that he thought she needed help, and jumped down.

  “Alright, guys and Honey,” Carter said as Melisi joined them. “If you encounter Defiant crew members as you make your way through the ship, tell them they should go to their own quarters and stay there until instructed otherwise. Got it?”

  “Got it!” they all whispered in unison.

  “Alright, let’s move out!” Carter said as he moved to the door and quietly opened it.

  “The lights are turned way down,” Melisi said, noticing the darkened corridor.

  Carter nodded as he cautiously poked his head out and looked up and down the hallway. He raised his arm and showed several quick signs with his hand, telling the others that the immediate hall was clear. He darted out into the hallway, both hands gripping his pistol. Melisi came right behind him and faced the other direction, her heavy lydeg tucked in her arm with one hand near the trigger mount and one holding the front stabilizing handle. They then concurrently motioned for their respective teams to join them. The other Raiders quickly flooded the hallway, half facing one direction and half facing the other. Without a word spoken, both groups started walking in their respective directions slowly, watching every alcove, crevice and bend in the halls for anything suspicious. The halls were unnaturally void of crewmembers, convincing Carter that something was indeed very, very wrong.

  “Melisi, you see anything yet?” Carter whispered into his transmitter after several minutes had passed.

  “Nothing Captain. Not a soul. It’s like the ship never had a crew at all. I don’t like it, I don’t like it at all. How about on your end?”

  “Nothing here either. Makes me very uncomfortable. Keep me updated and stay safe…honey!”

  “I’m not your honey, but I will keep you up to speed,” Melisi whispered as she approached a bend in the hallway and took up a cover position to allow her team to go forward.

  Carter’s group pressed on to the bridge, encountering not a single soul on their way. He became so concerned and nearly frantic, that he resorted to opening random doors just to find someone, anyone. All efforts were in vain. The Defiant was a ghost ship.

  His concern was escalating when the words, “Captain are you there?” made him stop his team, just feet away from the main bridge door. There was no guard posted outside the door, a fleet violation.

 
“I’m here. What’s up?”

  Melisi’s voice was shaky. “We’ve made it to the engineering room.”

  “Find anything?”

  “Yes,” answered Melisi, uncharacteristically somberly.

  Carter made eye contact with one of the members of his team for reassurance before asking, “What do you have Melisi?”

  “It’s them Captain. It’s...it’s all of them,” Melisi’s voice sounded weak.

  It’s what Carter was afraid of. “What do you mean ‘all of them,’ Melisi?”

  “The crew...it’s the crew. They’re all here,” Melisi said, her voice trembling with emotion and shock.

  “And?” Carter forced himself to ask, and then gripped his weapon tighter awaiting the answer.

  “They are in piles, hundreds and hundreds of them. They are in piles as high as the engine turbines. They’re all dead. They are dried out like the ones we saw in the escape pod images. Something has sucked them all dry!”

  The situation was much worse than Carter could have ever imagined. He quickly put his pistol in his belt and pulled his heavy lydeg from off his back and primed it; the other members of his team followed suit.

  “All right Sergeant, here’s what I want you to do,” Carter said after upgrading weapons. “I want your team to quickly retrace your steps back to our ship. Stay there and secure it. We’re almost to the bridge. We are going to go in, check it out and then meet up with you in a few minutes. Got it?”

  There was no reply.

  “Melisi did you hear me?”

  Silence.

  “Melisi, Honey? Talk to me!” Carter said again, dread starting to sound in his voice.

  Silence.

  “Any member of Melisi’s team, do you hear me?” he said one last time. “Please answer me!”

  “Captain, I think we need to leave now!” Radford whispered over Carter’s shoulder, his voice showing a rare hint of trepidation for the veteran Raider.

  In all the years Carter had been a Raider, he had never experienced anything like this before. He had fought and killed his fair share of Krohns, rescued his fair share of refugees and done way more than his fair share of repair work. But he had never seen or even heard of something like this happening. He had no training and no contingency plans for such a scenario and felt helpless. The very thought that something had entered this destroyer and had managed to kill her entire crew was too fantastic to believe. But the fact that half of his squad was not reporting in, was more than enough proof for him to decide that the situation was beyond desperate. If whatever was doing this was able to subdue six Raiders before any of them got a chance to even utter a distress call, meant that this foe was definitely out of their league. Way out.

  “Captain I agree. We need to go now!” another echoed Radford’s suggestion. “This thing is bigger than us.”

  Carter nodded but didn’t really hear what his team was saying. His thoughts were fixed on Melisi’s team. In all likelihood, they had been subdued and consumed like the crewmembers they had stumbled upon. Carter cringed.

  Being part of an elite team like the Raiders meant that the members were all very close to each other, some closer with each other than they were with their own families. As Captain over the Hornell squad, Carter knew each of his members very well but Sergeant Melisi had always had a special place in Carter’s heart and her death would be especially hard. Her place hadn’t been a romantic one, but rather familial, like a sister. For years they had kept up a teasing, jeering relationship that both had enjoyed and drawn strength from. Carter pushed the thoughts of her out of his mind. He had to focus on the task at hand.

  “Captain,” another officer pleaded when Carter didn’t reply. “Let’s get out of here!”

  Carter tightened his jaw. “After the bridge,” he said and began walking to the bridge, feeling apprehensive to say the least, although doing his best not to show it to his team.

  Carter slowly approached the panel that operated the bridge door and motioned for two of his team to stand ready to fire at anything in the room as soon as the door opened, should they need to. The other three took defensive positions guarding the rear of the operation.

  Carter quickly tapped a combination of numbers on the pad near the door, causing the pad to light up and the door to lift. Behind it was another door, a heavy blast door that was sealed tight. There was a different pad on the blast door. Carter quickly tapped in another set of numbers causing the blast door to also slowly open upward.

  As the door ascended, bright light from within the bridge illuminated the dim hallway. Carter stood back and tucked his heavy lydeg into his armpit and pushed his cheek firmly against the weapon to look down the sights. The other two Raiders waiting with him also brought their weapons up.

  Before the door was even half way up, shots started coming from inside the bridge. The Raiders blindly returned fire and dove out of the way.

  “Those aren’t Krohn weapons!” Radford said as he blindly fired a few shots into the room.

  “I know!” Carter yelled. “They’re ours!”

  “What should we do?” Radford asked as a shot narrowly missed his foot.

  Carter thought for just a moment before taking out a haze grenade from his pack and quickly showing it to his team.

  “Think that’ll work?” Radford asked skeptically as he lowered a protective shield over his face.

  “We’ll see,” Carter, yelled as he leaned over and tossed the grenade into the room and then lowered his own mask.

  The grenade’s arrival in the bridge warranted several additional salvoes of weapon fire that harmlessly smashed into the walls of the hallway. The grenade then ignited and began to fill the bridge with a thick, yellow, smoky haze. Once the haze was at its maximum, Carter rushed into the bridge, firing snap shots as he did with Radford and the others laying down a suppressive fire from behind, to keep the defenders pinned.

  In the very front of the bridge, right below the main viewing screen, was a large pile of nonessential instruments, station chairs, an obsolete sonar control station on its side, and several supply crates. All of these items formed a crude, one-sided barricade behind which the defenders cowered.

  Carter skillfully darted over and around the bridge control stations, carefully avoiding the random shots that the defenders offered through the heavy layer of haze that now saturated the room. Once Carter was securely positioned in the room, he brought his weapon up and pelted the barricade over and over again allowing the rest of his team to enter in and take up their own positions.

  Once they were all in the room, they instinctively closed in on the defender’s location. The defender’s shots were now few and far between, as they succumbed to the stifling yellow haze, which caused lung irritation, and burning of the eyes.

  When the Raiders were nearly on top of the barricade, Carter motioned for them all to stop, which they did. Carter then dropped his own weapon to the floor and before the rest of his team knew what he was doing, dove behind the crude wall.

  Two figures from behind, dressed in fleet officer uniforms, immediately stood up and moved to attack him, bravely combating the haze, which stung their eyes. But before they could aim their weapons, Carter quickly kicked the pistol out of one’s hand, and twisted around and easily grabbed the other’s and tossed it across the room. The two officers weren’t fazed by how effortlessly they had been disarmed and dove at Carter to engage him hand to hand. The officer’s combat training was no match for the veteran Raider. Blow after blow they tried to land on him, and blow after blow Carter easily blocked. Taking advantage of the haze and his opponents failing stamina, Carter finally landed a solid punch of his own directly in the stomach of one of his assailants, causing him to bend over in sharp pain.

  The other Raider team members watched in awe and confusion, as Carter, still easily fending off the other, grabbed the hurt officer
by the neck and kneed him in the face, sending him to the ground in a thud.

  Even before the reeling officer had fallen to the ground, the other sent a high kick intended for Carter’s head. Carter sensed the kick coming and in perfect stride turned, stepped out of the way, grabbed the leg that was still in midair and used it as a lever to toss his last opponent to the ground.

  “Captain, what are you doing?” Radford asked, as he ran up behind Carter with his weapon aimed at the officers.

  “These aren’t hostiles,” Carter said panting for breath as he rolled one of the officers over. “See here? This is a Defiant officer.”

  “But how did you know?” one of the other Raiders asked as he too approached, weapon still fixed on the officers.

  “Intuition,” Carter said as he sat the hurting officer up and patted him on the back. “Sorry I had to do that,” Carter said offering a hand to help the officer up. “But believe me, it’s infinitely better than getting a couple lydeg rounds shot in your leg.”

  “Captain!” Radford shouted. “You’d better see this.”

  Carter walked over to Radford and noticed another Defiant officer lying at his feet.

  “What do you got there, Radford?” Carter asked.

  “I think it’s...Commander Drezden,” exclaimed Radford.

  “Is he alright?” Carter said as he hurriedly knelt down to inspect the commander, hoping that he hadn’t inadvertently shot him.

  “I think so. Maybe the haze got to him?”

  “Set up a haze catalyzer and clear out this room,” Carter ordered. “And someone reseal the door for crying out loud!”

  Radford withdrew a device from his pack, gently placed it on the floor and pressed a button on its side. Seconds later, most of the haze was gone.

  Carter removed his helmet and took out a water bottle from his pack and squeezed a few drops onto Drezden’s chapped lips. “You ok, Commander?” asked Carter, as he patted the commander’s shoulder. “Commander Drezden, you’re safe. Can you hear me?”