“Let’s give our pirate captain some mental training to block basic scans and we should then be almost ready to go,” he directed.
“Why should we do that if he plans to betray you?” Seil-Ca asked.
Mike smiled, “Well, we have to make him believe that we trust him.”
They all laughed for a moment partly in humor and partly just from the stress of the impending operation.
Lt. Collins remembered this just as another wave of electrical shocks coursed through his body. When it stopped he could faintly hear someone shouting at him but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. A hand hit him across the face but he was too far gone to feel it.
“That’s not working,” Alexander commented moving closer to the control station.
Bie-Tor moved from the side of her prisoner and returned to the surgical station’s control panel. Furiously touching several icons, she smiled as a robotic arm moved to Collin’s neck. A second later nothing happened. The station mistress looked mad for a Blue and again and again touched the sensor pad as the robot arm repeatedly injected something into him.
Once more the young officer’s body shook and fought against the force restraint field that was holding him down. The surgical station strained and made a metal stress noise from his efforts but the field remained active.
“My, my, he is a strong one,” the old mistress declared forgetting her own dilemma for a moment as she marveled at the young human’s struggle.
“What did you do to him?” Alexander asked.
“I gave him the strongest stimulant the medical station has,” she replied and then added, “at four times the normal dosage.”
“That will kill him,” the pirate captain said without emotion. Collins was the law and order that he despised and who had brought him to his current low position yet if he died he wouldn’t be able to talk.
“No, in my past experience it will only bring him back,” she informed looking past the pirate and Darden to her Dog who standing with his head down just behind them.
Mike suddenly stopped struggling and his eyes snapped open as he screamed.
“What time is it?”
Again the pirate told him the time hoping he’d reveal something.
Bie-Tor gave him another much lower shock to get his attention.
“Tell me what did you do to me?” she demanded “What has happened to my ability to read thoughts?”
Collins turned his head and laughed a low almost weak laugh.
“Ruse de Guerre,” he said to their collected confusion.
“What does that mean?” she inquired turning and looking to her two human collaborators.
Alexander the Great shrugged and Darden just looked down to the floor hoping he wouldn’t be punished.
“I think it is French,” the pirate captain finally said and added “one of our numerous human languages.”
Again Mike’s laughter took them by surprise.
“Ruse de Guerre means a trick of war! It is military tactic using deception and surprise to obtain an advantage or victory in battle.”
“What?” the Blue station mistress said in confusion.
“My two personal favorites are the radio message sent prior to Battle of Midway in World War Two and when General Hannibal tricked King Eumenes the Second.”
“What are you saying?” Bie-Tor demanded not understanding his references.
“You didn’t really think I was the real mission did you?” he asked and then continued, “I’m the distraction, after all who in their right mind would ever trust a pirate?”
“This has all been a trick!” Alexander said finally catching on.
“Yep,” he agreed and then turned his head a little. “Is everything ready?” he asked to no one in particular.
His hardwire was inactive but he like all of the Werewolf commandos was equipped with a neural transponder. His sub-dermal implant had activated a few minutes earlier and he could now hear his teams as they reported in.
Masters, Stanton, Dover and Cappillo’s teams all signaled in they were ready. Next was his ship commanders with some startling news followed by Lt. Daily aboard the IPS Culper.
“We are ready to go boss, though I can’t hack into their command systems so we will have to take their CIC and bridge to do that,” Martin explained.
“Open Pandora’s Box,” Mike said giving the go signal to all of his teams. He felt that it was a fitting operational name as they had given the station so many gifts and would now unleash harm unto her world.
“Who are you talking to?” Bie-Tor demanded and gave him another brief shock.
Mike shook it off being so hyped up on the stimulants that she had given him that he had barely felt it. A moment later an explosion nearby could be felt rocking their part of the station with its vibration.
The station mistress ignored her subject for a moment as she used a comm. panel to demand to know what was going on.
“We don’t know mistress, our internal security systems are down and we are trying to restart them,” a voice reported from the station’s main bridge.
“What do you know?” Bie-Tor demanded.
“The explosion was on the central deck near the docking spurs and occurred on the outer access doors.”
“Lock down the station and get the security systems back online!” the old Blue commander ordered taking charge.
Turning back to her prisoner she was well past losing her patience.
“You have already lost,” Collins stated.
“I’ll cut you into little ribbons if you don’t tell what is going on and what you have done to me!” she threatened moving the arm of a laser scalpel towards his torso.
“No, if you kill me you’ll never get your telepathic powers back,” he countered, still bluffing and stalling for time.
The Karduan mistress smiled, “Who said anything about killing you?”
The surgical arm’s laser activated and slowly cut a thin shallow cut from his left pectoral muscle down to his hip. Mike locked his jaw and kept from screaming.
“Now, tell me what I want to know!”
The young Confederation officer took a deep breath as he heard her comm. unit activate.
“Mistress, our sensors are reading massive activity at the gravity well. At least a dozen ships are coming through,” the bridge officer reported.
“Have our system defense ships and our manned warships move up and take their positions at the edge of the minefield,” she commanded as the bridge officer acknowledge her orders.
She had been expecting a Confederation attack and had planned accordingly. Let them fight their way through her mines as her defense boats and warships waited and fired on them as they tried. If they’d get through the field, then her first wave attack would be with her six automatic system defense ships while having a second line of repaired and undermanned warships behind them. They would then fight their way back to the station so she could use the repair base’s defenses to augment her ships’ firepower in a combined defensive strategy.
“I do have something to tell you,” Mike announced breaking her away from her thoughts of battle.
“What do you have to say?” she asked.
“Hope was the last thing Pandora let out of her box,” he said with a smile as he thought of the Star Wolf and her captain.
“I have had enough of you!” Bie-Tor cried and turned the electrical shock up to its next highest level and activated the panel sending the young lieutenant into electrical induced convulsions.
Lieutenants Kevin Chow and Tony Doyle stumbled from the shoves of Karduan guardswomen. They had been the two men who had their feet flogged and who would have been executed if it hadn’t been for that crazy pirate with his extension sword.
Both officers had been best friends for many years having graduated in the same class from the Star Academy and had even gone to flight school together. Once they earned their pilot’s wings they found to their disappointment that they had been assigned t
o different starships. Lt. Chow had gone to the Fleet Carrier ISS Ark Royal whereas Lt. Doyle had been sent to the smaller Auxiliary Carrier ISS Lexington.
Lt. Doyle had been captured after the 12th Defense Fleet had been trapped and all but destroyed. He and the other pilots of the Lady Lex had watched as their carrier had been gutted by an out of control internal fire and their fleet’s remaining starships barely managed to escape. Unfortunately, the surviving fighters of the Lexington remained behind. Left with no remaining missiles or other ordinance and low on fuel they were forced to surrender to the Karduan forces.
His old friend Lt. Chow had been captured in a similar circumstance when the 26th Attack Fleet was caught from both gravity wells by two Karduan fleets at the Battle of Calipee Four. The Ark Royal had been at the rear of the fleet as it engaged a Karduan fleet head on. She had launched her impressive complement of eighty-six strike fighters and fighter bombers to attack the enemy fleet and had then been relegated to rear guard duty to await their return.
When the second enemy fleet had bended in from the Beta gravity well the rear of the Confederation Attack fleet was cut off and forced to fight alone. Along with handful of frigates, a hospital ship and a half dozen supply ships they didn’t stand a chance. Chow’s fighter group had spent their ordinance and was on their return run when the second Karduan fleet arrived. Finding themselves cut off from their mother ship, the Ark Royal’s fighters decided to go for it and run and gun their way back to the trapped carrier. Lt. Chow’s SF-86 Sabre was hit several times causing his life pod to eject just before his fighter exploded into a million pieces. He was then forced to watch the battle as he floated alone in space.
Many of the 26th Attack Fleet ships had escaped but only after fighting their way through the first Karduan fleet. The ships of the rear of the 26th weren’t so lucky and were either destroyed, heavily damaged or captured including the fleet carrier.
Six hours later his life pod was drawn into a Karduan shuttle where he found himself a prisoner along with a dozen other pilots. Eventually his group of prisoners and the Ark Royal were turned over to this station. They were immediately put to work right after they were fitted with obedience collars and all shocked to the floor. This was to give them a taste of what was to come for any infractions of the rules.
To his surprise and disappointment, he found his best friend already toiling away under duress to repair ships for the enemy. Once reunited the pair worked to undermine the Karduan efforts to repair ships and fighters. They organized work shifts to slow down their efforts as much as possible. They also actively tried to sabotage projects they had been assigned to.
Unfortunately, their Karduan overseers were diligent about checking the quality of their human prisoners’ work. Their shoddy work had eventually been tracked back to them with the help of the traitor Darden. Each time they had been caught they had been punished with shocks through their obedience collars, sessions with the pain stick and with feet floggings. The last under the suggestion of the traitor.
Still they persevered until the Karduans decided to make an example of the two defiant fighter pilots. They weren’t the first examples to be made. Some had been shocked to death or held under the rays of a pain stick until they were killed in agonizing pain. Others were executed by the sword which was to be their fate except for the unexpected intervention of the young pirate.
They were given a temporary stay of execution as the station mistress had become preoccupied with the foolish pirate. Chow and Doyle were taken back to their leg pillory and given another ten strikes to the bottom of their feet. The pain from each blow was excruciating on their already raw feet. Left to their wallow in pain it seemed like several hours had gone by when guards came to take them to a holding cell. Something was up as all of the human work shifts had been returned to their cells and the Karduans were running around as busy as a swarm of bees.
The cell was full of the new prisoners that had just been brought in from that damaged Karduan transport ship that had docked hours earlier. The young fighter pilots were shoved into the cell as both of them lost their balance and fell to the hard metal floor.
Strong hands grabbed them and helped them up but the pain in their feet made them cry out. The other human prisoners quickly sat them down with their backs against a wall.
“Who are you two?” one of them asked of the two junior grade lieutenants.
“I’m Lt. Kevin Chow of the ISS Ark Royal.”
“And I’m Lt. Tony Doyle of the ISS Lexington.”
At the mention of the Lexington several men smiled and chuckled causing Doyle to get mad.
“What wrong with serving on the Lexington?” he asked in anger.
A young solid looking officer knelt down next to him and smiled. He had a broad smile that seemed to come easily and he looked to be of Mediterranean decent.
“No offense, there is nothing wrong with serving on the Lady Lex. In fact, the last time we saw her she was almost fully restored to operational condition,” he informed as he looked at their feet.
“What!” Doyle said in surprise and looked to his friend.
Chow grabbed the officer’s arm, “These rooms are monitored so don’t say anything you don’t want the Blues to know about.
The young lieutenant smiled again and shook his head.
“Don’t worry about that,” he replied and then look over to one of the other prisoners. “Medic, lets see about their feet.”
Chow and Doyle looked to each other each sharing a moment of total confusion.
“Who are you?” Tony asked.
“I’m Lt. Rufo Cappillo, ISS Star Wolf,” he said still smiling and then added “Oh and we are your ride out of here.”
“What!” they both said at the same time.
Cappillo stood up and touched his finger to the hidden sensor behind his right ear.
“Roger that!” he said and looked to the rest of the milling men around him.
“What’s the word, sir?” Gunny Masters inquired.
“It’s go time!” he announced as the forty-one men quickly moved to get ready.
The eleven men with old style casts on quickly broke open their casts revealing small arms, explosives and medical kits. The interior of the casts had been treated with TPA that could block Karduan weapon scanners.
Kevin and Tony couldn’t believe it when an old chief petty officer came over and gave them each an injection directly to their feet. In a little over a minute their feet stopped hurting and looked healed with new pink skin.
“How can this be?” Doyle exclaimed as he pulled himself to his feet and stood normally for the first time in weeks.
“You can thank the Ameri-Corps’ medical division for the latest Heal-X Type Four,” the medic said.
Lt. Chow was excited to help but seeing them getting ready he was a little unsure and definitely concerned that whatever they were planning might not work.
“Even with a dozen or more pistols your arms won’t be enough to overcome the fully automatic weapons and armor of the Karduan guardswomen.”
The men around him all laughed including Lt. Cappillo.
“We are only one small part of this mission,” he informed and added “don’t worry help is on the way.”
A second after he said that an explosion could be felt.
“Ok that’s our ride,” he said with a big ass smile and then raised his voice so that everyone could hear him. “Alpha Team you and Echo Team free and arm the prisoners, Bravo Team takes the upper CIC, Charlie team you take the lower CIC. Delta Team ... he started and found Gunny Masters, “you take the Star Tiger and hold her until relieved.”
Everyone either nodded and let out grunts of approval as they moved to the main doors.
A young crewman dressed in a gray midshipman’s uniform grabbed Lt. Doyle’s hand and injected him with something.
“What was that?”
“An isotope crystal that will trick their DNA locks and allow you to fire Karduan weapons, sir
,” he said and then injected Lt. Chow’s hand.
“What about our collars?” Doyle asked.
Cappillo held up a palm pad that had been smuggled inside one of the old style casts.
“They are deactivated,” he said and added “but you’ll have to wait until this is over for us to remove them.”
Moving to the main door, Rufo touched behind his ear and activated his neural transponder. A moment later he spoke out loud but no one could hear the reply.
“Martin, we are ready,” he said.
“Roger that, I’m opening all of the cell doors,” Daily answered from the computer center onboard the IPS Culper.
When the door opened they were greeted by ten heavily armed and armored Karduan guards. Their leader though had his face plate up and was clearly a Karduan male.
Chow and Doyle tried to rush them but were held back by the raid team members.
“Easy, they are with us,” Gunny said to the two officers.
Specialist Chac-Ras smiled back at them, “Echo Team reporting in.”
“Did you have any trouble?” Cappillo asked seeing that they were each carrying two Karduan gauss rifles and extra pistol belts.
“It was a piece of pie, though we did run into a Karduan squad that was suppose to guard the detention area so we convinced them not to and took their guns,” he said with a smile as he handed over one of the two auto needle assault rifles he carried. The other Karduan guards were also Blue Confederation servicemen and women. They were some of their first recruits and were not only part of their attack force but were also Believer Disciples.
No one corrected him about the expression being “piece of cake” as they were busy taking the extra rifles and side arms so that almost everyone was now armed.
“Alpha and Echo round up the prisoners and get them to the quad,” Rufo ordered.
Both teams commingled at this point and rushed to the other cell doors and side wings just as some curious prisoners started to stick their heads out.
Another explosion could be felt this time much closer.
Wolf's Run: The Chase of War (Star Wolf Sqaudron Book 2) Page 48