Gateway To The Universe: In Bad Company

by Craig Martelle

  Thanks to Bethany Anne, humanity now played a key role in universal affairs, in the ever-expanding Etheric Federation.

  ***

  Terry and Char watched on the drop ship’s screen as the gate appeared. Terry checked everyone quickly and they were all secured. He relaxed as the War Axe moved into the shimmering ring. There was a brief indescribable sensation and then the ring was gone and the star pattern was different.

  The ship stopped. “Stay where you are. We have to wait for the all clear,” Terry said through the bubble of his helmet.

  He heard a bang and pop. Terry switched views and saw that the hangar bay door was opening and the bay itself had not been depressurized first.

  Terry had studied the SOP on gating and nowhere did it say the hangar doors would open upon arrival. They didn’t need them open to launch the pods, which faced outboard from the side of the ship. They only needed the doors open to recover the pods.

  “Smedley?” Terry asked.

  ***

  The instant the ship arrived, the bridge ran checks and verified that systems were reactivating. The gate drives took too much power and active systems could throw off the wormhole targeting.

  Everything non-essential was powered down during the establishment of a gate and the transit. All systems were immediately energized upon arrival. But there was always a lag.

  A red light flashed, showing that the hangar doors were opening. The forcefield was not yet in place. Atmosphere vented explosively through the crack of the doors. Usually, the forcefield would contain it and the venting would occur at one time, reducing the stress on the door seals.

  “Why is the hangar door opening?” Micky demanded.

  “External control, sir. Smedley is trying to stop the process, but it appears that he’s locked out,” K’thrall reported.

  “Sir, a ship is approaching,” the helm reported.

  “A Yollin raider, I suspect,” Micky said more calmly than he felt. He tapped his controls. “Colonel Walton. We are under attack. A Yollin raider will be landing on the hangar bay momentarily. If you would be so kind as to repel the boarders, I would be eternally grateful.”

  ***

  P’tok saw the wormhole establish. “Stand by!” he broadcast throughout the ship. As the great warship came through, he saw the vulnerable bay doors. “Activate the override.”

  He had purchased the program from a Londil less than a year earlier and had already successfully used it a number of times. It would be obsolete sometime soon, but that was not this day.

  The Yollin watched the puff of air as it escaped when the doors popped open. The doors continued to slide back, showing a massive hangar bay that looked empty. “Our lucky day. Take us in,” he ordered and the pilot accelerated forward, touching the main engine to gain momentum while using thrusters to align the Singlaxian Grandeur with the opening.

  The ship darted forward and closed rapidly on the War Axe. “Now is the time for redemption, my brothers. Brace for impact.” P’tok yelled his war cry as his ship flew into the bay and due to the expert abilities of his pilot, landed with a slight thump.

  “Gold and glory!” P’tok shouted in their tradition. If they pulled off this raid, then maybe he could retire.

  ***

  Terry heard the captain’s plea. With a snarl, he activated his pod’s comm link with the other pods. “You heard the man. Maintain unit integrity, four by two, limit your attacks to sonic blasts within the hangar bay. Joseph and Kimber, your teams may be able to get an angle where the open door is behind your targets. If so, turn your railguns loose. No friendly fire incidents. Go, go, go!”

  The six pods popped open and the warriors rushed out. Some hesitated as the carapaced creatures emerged from the enemy raider. They wore a massive bubble over their heads because of their mandibles. They wore a separate suit over their bodies, but the carapaces showed through. The first warriors opened up with the sonic disruptors. Two warriors fell when the disruptors had no effect on the Yollin, and they returned fire with slug throwers.

  “Joseph!” Terry yelled when he saw how ineffective the nonlethal fire was. Many of the crew carried swords that they’d won in combat or acquired over the years. Terry carried a Mameluke made with Damascus steel from a bygone era. Akio had killed a Forsaken who carried it and given it to Joseph initially, who traded Terry for a shorter cavalry sword.

  The Mameluke was a Marine’s weapon. Once a Marine, always a Marine. Terry never carried a sword into combat when he’d served in the Corps, but it was a new world and he had bested many foes with the blade. He waved it in front of himself as he ran toward the nearest Yollin, zigzagging on his approach.

  The alien held his ground as he fired at the approaching human. His slugs bounced harmlessly off the inside hangar walls. Terry stayed on his feet, taking small and unpredictable steps. If he leapt at the Yollin, he’d give him a target.

  Terry dodged right at the last instant, ducked and spun. He hit the Yollin with every bit of strength in his body. The Mameluke cut halfway through the creature’s body before it stuck. Terry kicked the alien backwards, but the sword didn’t pull free. With his foot on the creature’s chest, he pulled his Jean Dukes and thumbed the lever to three, blowing the creature into the deck.

  The sword came free, and Terry looked for his next target. It was chaos. His people were mixed up with the aliens. He couldn’t see past their ship to see what was happening on the other side. A Yollin popped out of the ship in front of him and then disappeared in a spray of guts and red mist as a railgun round tore him apart.

  Terry looked for the shooter and found a warrior standing next to Petricia, as if protecting her. She looked out of place, being unarmed. He shook his head as Joseph waded into a melee with a large Yollin using his rifle like a club to block Joseph’s sword attacks.

  All of a sudden, Joseph decided he’d had enough and sped up. Time seemed to stop as he slashed three times, shredding the alien.

  A whirling dervish broke into the middle of a Yollin band. Valerie wielded her European-style sword while Robin moved at her side with two short blades, the women fighting as a single entity. A round from a Yollin’s slug-thrower slammed into Robin. The Vampire slapped a hand against her chest to hold her suit closed as she continued to swing with deadly efficiency.

  Valerie didn’t give them a target they could hit. The railguns ripped the Yollin apart and the tide of battle was swinging. A great blast sent a shockwave through the hangar bay and most of the FDG went down. Terry swayed on his feet but stayed upright. The pack and long-term enhanced were still in the fight.

  ***

  “They fight like demons,” K’thrall said.

  “Fearless,” Micky San Marino said as he watched the battle unfold on the hangar deck. The warriors from the Force de Guerre were engaging the Yollin in hand-to-hand combat, using their weapons as clubs while the aliens fired into the groupings, seemingly indifferent if they hit their own or not.

  An alien jumped from the ship and rolled a device in the path of the warriors. He stepped back. Only K’thrall knew that he was smiling. “Run!” he yelled, but it was too late. The device exploded and the shockwave slapped the weaker humans down.

  But they’d been enhanced and weren’t killed. They fell and struggled mightily to get back to their feet. Terry and his inner circle waded into the fray. Lights flashed off the blades as they whirled in deadly arcs. The Yollin were consolidating their forces to punch through and get into the ship.

  “If they get to the hatch, they can cause a lot of grief. Structure, respond with your damage control gear and prepare to repel boarders,” Micky said flatly.

  “Yes, sir,” Commander Lagunov replied over the comm channel before closing the link.

  “Sensors!” the captain yelled, ripping his gaze from the battle on the hangar deck. “Tell me there is no one else out there, please. We are here with our asses hanging out.”

  The bridge crew had already been engaged. Only the captain and their Y
ollin crewmate had been distracted by the battle.

  “We are alone. Getting pinged from a ship well within the heliosphere, but they are two days away,” the systems station reported.

  “Very well,” Micky said, blowing out a breath as he returned to watching the battle.

  ***

  Terry ran around the front of the Yollin ship, saw the open hatch, and seized the opportunity. He bolted into the ship with Char close behind him.

  When the two Vampires saw Terry and Char head in, they followed.

  Terry blasted the first Yollin he saw, using his Jean Dukes Special. Then he hesitated. Smedley, how does a Yollin surrender?

  >>They grasp their mandibles and duck their heads,<< the EI replied.

  Thank God, Terry said. The alien he had just hacked down had not done that. He started running again, looking for a stairway as he assumed the bridge was up and not down.

  Toward the rear of the ship, he found what he was looking for and raced up the stairs three at a time. Char followed, both of her Glocks in her hands, her fingers on the triggers as Terry had told her not to do a million times. He told her to exercise trigger discipline and a million times, she ignored him.

  She even shot him one time to demonstrate her trigger control. Dokken didn’t care, he ran up the stairs behind Char. Valerie and Robin were behind him, trying to get past and be first into the fight.

  Terry tore through the hatch and headed toward the nose of the ship. He guessed the bridge was up one more level, but the stairs had ended. He wondered what kind of madman designed a ship without direct access between decks.

  Two Yollin appeared. the first one grabbed his mandibles and started to bow. Terry relaxed for an instant as the second alien aimed a rifle over the back of the first. Terry dodged and Char fired. Twelve rounds later, both Yollin lie dead in the corridor.

  Terry started running again, peeking in hatches as he passed. Char checked too, as she passed, but Valerie and Robin started to fall behind as they opened the doors to get a better look inside. Terry and Char disappeared through a doorway and pounded their way up the stairs.

  ***

  “Get us the fuck out of here!” P’tok yelled, furious at the inevitable failure of his attack. He had every intention of leaving the other raiders behind.

  “Powering the drive system now,” the pilot stated.

  The ship answered the call and the systems across the board showed nominal. The doors were still open and it didn’t matter whether the forcefield was in place or not. It was made for ships to fly through it. Its sole purpose was to keep the atmosphere in.

  The bridge crew called out their readiness checklist.

  P’tok was livid. He’d been engrossed with the battle and hadn’t prepared the egress strategy.

  “Where did all those humans come from?” he roared.

  ***

  Valerie saw the edge of a mandible appear from behind the door. With a quick stroke, she hacked the mandible off, and the alien screamed in pain. She stepped in and swung, but had a bad angle and her blade bounced off the Yollin’s carapace. She followed with a thrust that impaled the alien.

  She yelled defiantly as she charged, ramming the alien against a bank of equipment. Sparks flew from the tip of her blade when it cut into the panel. She yanked backward, pulling the sword out.

  The Yollin slowly toppled. Valerie quickly searched the space. They were alone, but the equipment was starting to hum.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Terry vaulted up the steps and found the door to the bridge. Terry was surprised to find it open. How could they not know that their ship had been boarded?

  Terry hesitated for a step then jumped through and dodged to the side, running into a Yollin at a workstation against the back wall of the bridge. Terry fired at point-blank range. The pistol was still set on three and it bucked slightly, but the Yollin was blown apart, and his station arced and sparked as the projectile burrowed deep into it. Terry dodged past the dead alien, now that he had the undivided attention of the other three on the bridge, including the one that looked to have almost no mandibles sitting in the center seat on a raised platform.

  Char dodged to the other side and aimed her pistols, ready to fire.

  The aliens were torn. Dokken barked furiously.

  The one that Terry thought was the captain looked to be in rage. He shook with his anger. The others had hands poised over their work stations.

  “Time to call off the attack,” Terry told the Yollin. “My name is Terry Henry Walton, and you’re on my ship.”

  The Yollin relaxed, and his eyes darted to the screen showing the battle. A mech had appeared and was rounding up the Yollins who had survived the human onslaught. The shimmer of the forcefield returned and the hangar doors started to close.

  “Punch it!” the captain called out. A knife flew past his head and embedded in the neck of the pilot. His hands went limp and he fell face-first into his console before sliding to the floor.

  Valerie stood in the hatch, her sword covered in alien blood.

  The second Yollin attempted to use the momentary distraction for his own heroics, but his station wasn’t designed to fly the ship and he had to mash one button too many. He died when Terry hammered him with a projectile on the number one setting. Even the weakest was enough to penetrate the alien’s carapace. The Yollin wasn’t thrown back, he simply jerked and slumped, leaving the workstation intact.

  “It looks like we want a setting of one for close quarters combat,” Terry told the captain. “Do you know what a sheriff is?”

  The Yollin didn’t answer.

  “Well, there’s a new one in town, and you’ve pissed him off. I’d love to just blow your head off, but I think we’ll need to talk with you about some things. Your life is mine and your continued survival depends on your cooperation. I expect you’re a pirate or some fucking ass monkey shit like that, which tells me that you’re not so keen on giving your life for your cause. Make no mistake. I will kill you, and I’ll kill you ugly.”

  P’tok didn’t deal with humans very often, but the ones standing on his bridge had a different look to them. He wasn’t afraid, but knew that he should have been.

  ***

  “Fuck you. And you too, buddy. Fuck all y’all!” Kae yelled using the mech’s external speakers.

  As soon as they had received the colonel’s call, he ran for the forward armory. Marcie and the rest of the team from their drop ship covered him. He powered up the system and made it to the battle in time to break the spirit of the rallying Yollin. After the detonation of their incapacitation bomb, they thought they had the upper hand.

  Kae squashed that quickly when he appeared wearing the battle armor, a mech that no Yollin could stand up to. Their weapons fired subsonic ammunition in order to limit hull penetration.

  Old fashioned slug-throwers, not even as advanced as Char’s Glocks.

  In the end, Kae rounded up ten prisoners. Twenty-two Yollin lie dead along with two warriors who were injured so badly, their nanocytes couldn’t save them. Thirty-seven warriors were injured.

  The forcefield was restored and the doors slowly closed. As atmosphere returned, those who could drew back their hoods and experienced the smell of propellant, of a ship’s engine, of the dead and dying.

  Kae sobered as the bodies were stacked. Yollin hands were zip-tied behind their backs.

  Marcie waved for Kae to stay where he was. She gathered the pack, along with Kim and Ramses, to board the enemy ship. Cory stayed behind to help the worst of the injured.

  Marcie was wary, but found it easy to follow the path the colonel had taken. There was a trail of dead bodies and alien blood.

  ***

  “I am Captain P’tok,” the Yollin announced as he removed his helmet and grasped his mandible stubs in surrender.

  “Why would you attack a warship like this?” Terry asked.

  “We have a saying in Yol. Who dares, wins,” the captain replied.

  “We have th
e same saying. I have to say that your name means asshole in Klingon. I won’t be able to say it with a straight face, but that is neither here nor there for you. Come on, douchebag. It’s time we introduce you to your new home.”

  The Yollin’s translator chip didn’t interpret a number of the human’s words, but he understood enough.

  He bowed his head in defeat. There would be no new ship and no need for a new crew.

  Terry nodded to Char, who pulled out a zip-tie and bound the Yollin’s hands behind his body. He looked a bit like a satanic effigy.

  Who was now Terry and Char’s prisoner. “Looks like we have ourselves an infiltrator ship. Hey, dickface,” Terry called. “What’s this console do and can we fix it?”

  “It is a general sensor console. And to answer your second question, I don’t know, can you?”

  “I’m starting to like you. Do you know what that means?” Terry asked. The Yollin didn’t answer. “I’ll kill you last.”

  Valerie and Robin stood aside as Captain P’tok was escorted from his own ship. Terry stopped and turned to Valerie. “Thanks for stopping the pilot.”

  “Any time, TH,” she answered, before entering the bridge to retrieve her knife. She’d almost forgotten it in the excitement.

  I’d really like to bite this captain, Dokken told Terry.

  I’m with you there, buddy. He’s quite a dick, but we have to protect him now that he’s in our custody. That’s kind of a human thing, Terry replied.

  For the record, I think it’s stupid, Dokken said. I so want to bite you.

  Dokken growled his dismay at the Yollin.

  ***

  “Smedley, I need you to make sure that can’t happen again. How in the hell did they implement a system override of our hangar bay doors?”

  Micky was angry. His ship was in one piece and they had acquired a second ship, which should have been cause for celebration, but the FDG had lost people. Micky had failed his embarked force by letting intruders on board.