“I don't see it, which side?”
“No target, no vis...”
“It's there, I saw it!”
“Easy guys... easy, our eyes are playing tricks on us... it's just us and the ghosts...”
“That doesn't make me feel any better, Captain.”
Steele motioned them up and forward, “C'mon guys, shake it off, let's keep going.” He checked the meter on the bottom of his wrist, its glowing green face showed it was a little warmer here, 5° Fahrenheit and that, for whatever reason, there was a little atmosphere remaining, though it was high in carbon dioxide content. They came upon an air-car stalled in the trough, a lone occupant strapped in with a seat belt. Jack stopped to examine the man who appeared to have been beaten to death, a large blood-encrusted wrench floating above his lap. His face and skull had been bludgeoned, his arms broken in an obvious attempt to protect himself. “What the fuck went on here...?” He turned to the others, “Was this what you saw?”
“No sir, it was much further down the tube.”
“Alright, keep moving.” Their helmet lights and hand-lights played odd moving shadows on the narrow tube and they were all becoming increasingly on edge, their eyes constantly deceiving them. It seemed they had been walking for far longer than the thirty-odd minutes it actually had been, but finally reaching the end of the air-car system, the men climbed out of the trough onto the platform, which was wider here than the tube of the spine. The massive blast doors beyond the platform told Jack they'd reached the stern and the engine room. Turning sideways to fit through the partly open doors, the men made their way through into the engineering area of the ship. Just beyond the doors Jack plucked a dimly lit flashlight floating at about eye level, “Psch,” he snorted, “here's our mystery light...” he tossed it aside. “Let's find the generators...”
“Movement...!” the Marines were shouldering weapons and taking defensive positions and Jack drew but visually fought the shadows to see what they had become fixated on. Tools, crates, rags, parts, dust and possibly a corpse in the right hand corner hung suspended in the zero gravity... all casting shadow upon shadow, the odd forms and shapes overlapping and shifting with the slightest movement of any of the dozen-plus lights they carried.
“Easy guys...” Jack's voice was calm, even though the hair on the back of his neck was standing up and the little voice in his head was screaming, Danger! Danger! He moved slowly forward, followed by a Marine on either flank. Something moved across his peripheral vision and he swung the muzzle of his pistol to follow it, but it was gone in the shadows. “Anybody see that...?”
“I'm seein' all sorts of shit, Captain, I can't tell what's real or not,” the Marine on his left moved up. “Let's just get this shit up and running, before we all go nuts.”
Weapons out, they moved cautiously about the engineering section, dodging the floating objects, trying not to create a chain reaction of moving and bouncing debris. Examining the control panel, the generators refused to respond, the panels and controls completely without power, the ship's power cells totally drained. “Dammit...” Jack wanted to pull off his helmet and scratch his head, “what the hell do we do now..?”
Marine Corporal Draza Mac was rummaging through a caged tool room, “We can do a manual startup, Captain... if I can find the fucking tool. Here it is!” He drug the heavy unit over to the control panel, “Somebody find a pry-bar” he said, kicking the access door on the bottom of the control panel's pedestal. It popped open and he pulled hard, several times before succeeding in tearing it open.
“Got one...”
Draza Mac looked up over the top of the control panel, “Good, stick it in there,” he pointed, “and turn that generator armature - it'll be frozen so don't be gentle.”
The generator in front of them was the size of a bread truck, with another like it and three more the size of a semi truck trailer, “You can rotate those by hand?” queried Jack.
“The small ones, yes,” answered Draza Mac without looking up.
Two Marines were standing on step plates on the side of the unit, “Where, here?”
Draza Mac popped up to look, “No, not there idiot, in the inspection slot on the side...” he shook his head inside his helmet, popping the cover off the hot box and jumpered the leads to the power feed at the base of the power control panel. He pulled another set of leads and drew them out of the box to the first generator, using his duty knife to wedge open a door on its side. He watched two Marines struggle with the pry-bar as he plugged the leads into the side of the generator. “Keep going,” he told them, “get it rotated at least one full rotation.” He moved back to the hot box and the control panel, “OK, here we go.” The Corporal powered up the hot box and the control panel lit up like a Christmas tree, mostly in red. “Good, now the hard part...” he said pointing to the panel, “as soon as you get a green light on the first set of bars, punch the button...”
“Captain...” Steele recognized Myomerr's voice.
“Go ahead Ensign,”
“Sir, patrols have reported activity in the sector near the gate to Klinghoffer...”
“The Archer and Bowman?”
“No sir, the Freedom confirmed they were still in gate transit. Commander Smiley believes they may be hostile, they have not responded to any hails, but he has no clear identification yet either.”
“Dammit, this is not a good time for this... have Smiley pull back toward the Freedom... scratch that, he knows what he's doing. Have the Freedom prepare additional fighters to launch to support his flight.”
“That's already been done sir, and the second Zulu has been launched. I just wanted to update you.”
Steele turned back to the task at hand, “OK guys, let's speed this up, shall we? I don't want to be stuck in this tin can if it turns into a shooting match out there...”
Climbing to the top of the generator's body, the Marine Corporal had fitted a firing tool to the top of the first generator and the two Marines with the pry-bar had moved on to break loose the next generator. Draza Mac looked down at Steele from the top of the unit, “Here we go Captain, watch the panel.” He loaded the impact tool with what looked like a shotgun shell, locking it. Pulling the mechanism’s lever and firing the charge, the generator spun up but the panel never registered more than halfway into the yellow. “Still cold...” he added, reloading the tool. He pulled the lever firing it again; the generator spun up but fell short of the green. “Dammit,” cursed Draza Mac, reloading the tool. “Third time's a charm...” It fired again; spinning up enough to flicker the green light but didn't catch when Jack mashed the button. “Son of a bitch! This is my last charge...” said the Corporal, reloading the device.
Jack looked up, “What? That's all we have...?”
“Captain...!” called Myomerr.
“Whaaaat...” he groaned.
“Commander Smiley has identified the ships as two Pirate destroyers approaching from the direction of the Klinghoffer gate, the Freedom is launching additional fighters...”
“Oh, fuck me...” He looked up at Draza Mac, “This better work Corporal, or we're in deep shit...” The Marine fired the final charge into the generator flywheel, spinning it up into the green, Jack mashing the button. The generator readings undulated up and down hitting the yellow and jumping back up into the green. Jack released the button and the readings almost immediately dipped precipitously toward the yellow, lights around the engineering room flickering.
“Hold it down skipper, don't let it go!”
Jack mashed it down again and the readings continued to rise and fall. “She doesn't want to catch...”
The Marine kicked the side of the generator casing, “C'mon you bitch, fire up!” He kicked it again harder, “C'mon!”
“She's starting to drop again...”
“No you don't...” he growled, kicking the generator so hard Jack could swear it moved, “start you stubborn whore...” the lights around them continuing to flicker.
The Sergeant st
epped up and whacked the casing from the other side with a small sledge hammer, making the readings jump; they began to stabilize as the armatures warmed up. Steele hadn't realized how hard he was holding the button down until he released it and felt the cramp in his hand. The Sergeant was winding up for another swing when Steele stopped him, “Hold on Sarge... I think that last one did it.” Readings on the panel showed the ship's power cells slowly taking a charge and the generator smoothing out, the lights around the engineering and engine room bright, flicker free.
Draza Mac climbed down, pulled the hot box leads off the generator and the control panel pedestal, watching the generator readings and the increasing power cell health. “Five minutes and the power cells will have enough balls to crank the next one up with the control panel. After that, the other three will be no sweat...”
CHAPTER THREE
FREEDOM, HARUNA TIER: HIDE N' SEEK
Commander Edgars had three screens up on his command chair, reviewing the video information coming from the shuttle on one and the other two displaying the data from the fighter patrols. “I feel like a lone duck sitting in a pond during hunting season...” he muttered to himself.
“A heavily armed duck...” added Ragnaar. He wasn't sure he knew exactly what a duck was, but he got the gist of what Walt Edgars meant.
The Commander nodded and smiled without looking up from his screens... it was true; they were a very heavily armed duck. But for some reason that didn't make him any less anxious. Pirates were like cockroaches, if there were two destroyers out there, it was a sure bet there were more. The Archer and Bowman hadn't reported seeing them in the gate transit - it is virtually impossible to have missed them passing and there was no other gate in that end of the sector. So, where in the hell had they come from? Stellar Cartography had no record of any planetary bodies in that area and no asteroid fields to hide in. It was a real head scratcher...
Checking the data and sensor sweep on his screens, Commander Edgars could see that the four Lancias of Blue flight had rendezvoused with the six Cyclones of Red flight; however the destroyers were still out of the Freedom's enhanced sensor reach. There had still been no communications with the pair of destroyers but since they were not broadcasting the UFW coded ping and not responding to verbal communications, they had to be treated like hostile ships.
■ ■ ■
Moving toward the destroyers at about one third throttle, Commander Paul Smiley was watching the four Lancias of Blue flight approach from behind on his sensor screen. “Welcome to the bar-b-que, Blue Flight... let's get this party started.” He throttled up to about seventy five percent as the Lancias fell into formation with the six Cyclones of Red Flight.
Sitting in the lead Lancia, Lieutenant Commander Derrick Brighton keyed his mic, “Roger Red Leader, we are happy to be a part of these smashing festivities... point us toward the closest piñata.”
Paul smirked at Derrik's dry British humor. “OK boys, arm guns, arm ordinance...” he flipped the toggles charging his weapons systems. “Red Four, take Five and Six, flank right. Red Two and Three, we're going left.” Smiley leaned the stick, arcing his group toward the left flank. “Blue Leader, take your boys straight up the middle...” He adjusted his targeting settings, “...and Zulu Two, as soon as you see a shield gap on one of those tin cans, you split 'em in half.”
“Copy Red Lead,” Lieutenant Brian Carter nudged the throttles back to hang behind the fighters, activating the gunship's weapons systems and flipping on the targeting system for the two massive ship-killer torpedoes the Zulu was carrying. His copilot monitored the gunship's tactical information and two additional crewmen manned the chin and dorsal turrets.
Paul set his comm system to broadcast on all channels for one last try, “This is Commander Paul Smiley of the UFW jump carrier Freedom... to the two destroyers we are approaching; identify yourself now or we will be forced to attack...” There was no reply, except the destroyers began to turn, slowly, moving to offer a broadside profile, one positioned higher than the other, presumably to allow its guns to shoot over the top of its sister ship, effectively doubling their firepower.
“They're turning Pappy...”
Paul switched back to the encoded UFW channel, “I see it Mike. Red Leader to all birds, let's light 'em up!” He pushed the throttle forward and felt the kick of the fighter's full thrust.
“Pappy, something's not right. These two are cruising around like they're out for a stroll on the beach...”
It didn't feel right to Paul either. He glanced at the targeting screen, the sensor sweep blipping each time it passed the targeted ships. At 20 seconds to target, there was no defensive fire from the destroyers and they still hadn't raised their shields. For the first time in a long time, the hair on the back of his neck was standing up...
■ ■ ■
Steele checked the sensor on the underside of his wrist for the umpteenth time, the glowing digital face showed an increase in atmosphere and temperature, but the carbon dioxide content was still dangerously high. “We can't wait any longer guys, we're running out of air and the ship's oxygen isn't safe... switch your suits to rebreather, the scrubbers ought to give us about another hour.”
“Crap, I hate the taste of scrubbed air...”
“I hear somebody's mouth moving,” retorted Steele, “but all I hear is waaaa waaaa waaaa...” He could hear snickering in his headset. “OK Lieutenant, I think we're ready for gravity.”
“Copy that Captain, everybody duck and cover. Gravity in four, three, two, one...” Everything all over the ship came crashing down, a cacophony of noise in the ship's thin atmosphere, distorted in the external mics fitted into their helmets, definitely a cringe-worthy event, alien sounding and eerie. And then all was quiet again.
Steele flipped open the small panel on his left arm and flipped off the micro switch for his boots. Ah, to walk in normal gravity, it felt so much better. He flexed his tired legs. “OK Lieutenant, go ahead and start restoring power to the ship's systems, looks like the gennies are stable now.”
“Copy that Captain.”
“We'll still be down here for a little bit, the Corporal will be lighting up the thrust engines and starting the warmers for the mains.... if you could restore power to the air-car system, that would be appreciated - save us a long walk back.”
“Will do sir...”
Whoever had said it was right, the scrubbed air did taste odd... Jack shrugged it off; it was better than no air at all, or trying to breathe the ship's weak oxygen... which bought him to another thought... hypoxia. If this was the best the ship's air system could do, it might explain some of the bizarre circumstances. “Corporal, is the air system working at full capacity?”
Draza Mac was working on the start-up for the thrust engines and maneuvering jets, standing at the engineering console and walking through the command sequence. “Yes sir,” he didn't look up from the keyboard, “but I don't know anything about those systems - wouldn't know how to back-check or troubleshoot...” the ship groaned, a sorrowful, mournful, metal, hollow groan, long and low. Draza stopped what he was doing and looked up, realizing everyone else had heard it too, “What... the fuck... was that?”
“Steele here, Lieutenant, did you hear that...?”
“I was just going to ask you the same thing... what the hell was that?”
“No idea, but I don't like it.”
“Captain, we heard it here in the cargo bay too...”
“In the video feed?”
“Well yeah there too,” replied Myomerr, “but through the hull of the shuttle...”
“I've got a bad feeling about this...” Steele turned back to the Corporal, “Hurry the fuck up. I want us off this tin can...”
The Corporal resumed the thruster engine start-up, “Could just be the hull warming up with the atmosphere...” metal squealed and creaked as if to reply, clicking and popping like a hot engine cooling off.
“Somehow I don't think it's agreeing with you...” Stee
le was examining two of the dead crewmen who looked like they had beaten each other to death. He wasn't ready to afford a personality to the ship just yet, but something had driven this crew to do things that weren't rational or sane, and it had to have something to do with the ship. Poor oxygen supply could lead to confusion, high levels of carbon dioxide could lead to hallucinations... but there were no warning lights or error messages, it reported that all the supply systems were working normally. Nothing added up the way it should. He paused, listening intently to the low, soft, metal... heartbeat? “Please tell me you have the engines up...”
The Corporal was frozen at the keyboard, “Nooo...”
The Sergeant looked at him from the generator control board, speaking slowly and deliberately, “Draza, quit pulling your pud and get those fucking engines up, on the double! And let's get our asses off this can!”
■ ■ ■
Myomerr and Maria were getting anxious just waiting in the shuttle, as it sat in the cramped cargo bay, monitoring the video and audio feeds... Jittery might actually be more accurate - especially considering all the odd noises, flickering lights, moving shadows, falling crates, tools and debris. Maria had gotten out of her seat in the cockpit to stretch her legs and was pacing back and forth in the passenger area of the shuttle. “What's taking them so long... they need to hurry up... we need to get out of here...”
“I know, I feel it too...” Myomerr shifted in her seat uneasily and ran her fingers through her mane. The rain of things falling through the air and clattering across the shuttle's hull when the anti-gravity came on was disturbing, but the dust that stirred up when the atmosphere began pumping into the bay did some pretty strange visual things. They had shut down all the shuttle's floodlights because the glare made it look like a snowstorm, the bay's stasis field holding it all in, creating a swirl of clouds. Things seemed to move about in the swirling clouds, shifting places around the bay... or did they? It was almost impossible to tell, everything including the windows of the shuttle were covered with a film of dark-gray dust. “Maria... Maria!”
Wings of Steele - Flight of Freedom (Book2) Page 4