For the Good of All

by Marc Stevens

  Tria asked the question that was bothering me. “Why would sentries be guarding the hangar openings?”

  Klutch’s visor was clear and we saw the toothy smile on his face. “Because I don’t think the security sensors are operable.”

  That got the beast in me laughing and I could feel adrenaline flowing into my system. “OK, let’s get moving. Coonts, I want you to wait until we have the sentries eliminated and then I want you to check out the shuttle and report back what you find. If it is not occupied, I want you in the launch control room as fast as possible — and make sure no one can use the comms.”

  He nodded and moved off in the direction of the active flight line. “Tria, Klutch, we need those sentries down without setting off any alarms. As soon as we take them out we need to get to the Zaens ship and take down the two standing around the hatch before they notice the missing guards. If the Zaens are being held inside, we will take out any hostiles and secure their ship. We need to make them understand we can’t leave until we plant our charges. Let’s get moving, I will meet you behind the ramp to the Zaen’s ship.”

  Tria moved off toward her designated target and Klutch moved to the other. I was trying to stifle the anxiety I was feeling. The Oolaran soldier in me was chomping at the bit to bloody the pirate troops. It would get its wish. I eased up to the massive hangar opening and peeked inside. There was a Tibor standing about two feet just inside. He had his helmet face plate up and was chewing on what looked like a stick of some sort. He turned his back to me and was waving the Tibor over from another hangar opening. I was going to slip up behind him but as I prepared to enter he turned back to me and stood looking out into the void. I had pulled away from the entrance and had my back to the hull right beside him. I snuck a peek, and now there were two of them standing right beside the opening on the other side of the atmospheric retention field. I could have easily shaken hands with either of them. The first one pulled the strange stick from his mouth and offered it to the other Tibor. The pirate took a quick look around and popped his helmet open. He took the offered stick and put it in his mouth and began chewing on it. I felt a tug on my leg and looked down to see the outline of Klutch below me. I slowly moved from the edge of the entrance. Once below the deck line Klutch pulled our helmets together.

  “Commander, the Throggs are drugging themselves. We should invite them out for a walk to clear their heads.”

  An evil smile crossed my lips and I nodded. “After you, Troop Master.”

  We both popped up from below the pirates’ feet. We were cloaked and no more than a foot away. They had no idea we were standing right in front of them. We reached out and pulled them through the atmospheric retention field. They both thrashed for a few seconds and went still. We gave them a healthy push and sent them on a one-way tour of the dust nebula. What a couple of dumbasses. That was one high they would never come down from. Coonts gave us a sitrep.

  “One hostile in the shuttle: he will no longer be a problem. I have disabled the communication equipment and I am moving to the launch control room.”

  I had yet to hear from Tria but knew she took care of the guard because a Tibor corpse caught my eye as it sailed out of the hangar into the void. Klutch and I stepped through the retention field and headed for the backside of the Zaen ship. Halfway there I saw Tria’s outline crouched behind the ramp that led to the boarding hatch. The two pirates that were loitering outside of the hatch were still oblivious to their fate. We worked our way around the rear of the ship and quietly made our way to Tria’s position. There were several crates sitting around the base of the ramp. Apparently, the pirates had taken everything of interest out of Broza’s ship. Klutch pointed at the crates next to the ramp and then me and Tria. He made a climbing motion and the two of us complied. We carefully climbed on top of the crates and were now directly behind the pirates. He held up a finger and then cautiously started up the ramp. I guess he was going to introduce himself when he got there.

  Coonts called back again. “No contact in the launch control room and the comms are now disabled.”

  I love it when a plan comes together — right up until it doesn’t. The hatch on the Zaen’s ship opened and Broza was shoved out. He collided with the cloaked Klutch, who was getting ready to do something unpleasant to the two pirates standing there. The Zaen bounced off the armor like he had hit a brick wall. The pirates stopped cold, staring in disbelief at the Zaen lying crumpled at their feet. We were caught off guard and temporarily frozen with indecision. Klutch did not miss a beat and jumped over Broza crashing head first into the pirate standing in the airlock. The hatch abruptly closed leaving the pirates outside struggling to determine what just happened. Tria came around from left field with a roundhouse punch that connected with the pirate’s helmet that was closest to her. That spurred me into action and I did the same but missed when the Tibor Tria had punched collided with my intended target. The Chaalt climbing hook I was going to bury in the pirate’s helmet scythed just over his head and clanged loudly off of the hull of the ship. I had put so much force into my swing I lost my balance and tumbled forward on top of the two pirates. The one still moving had his helmet open and was yelling for help. Broza came to his senses and started crawling down the ramp on all fours. I managed to get up on my knees and was going to shove my climbing hook down loud mouth’s throat. He put a stop to that by getting a grip on his pistol. I didn’t want any part of that and rolled my knee onto his arm, pinning his pistol hand. I jammed my needle gun into his face and gave him a burp of the high velocity shards. Man, did that ever make a mess.

  I heard Tria calling to Broza asking him how many Tibor were on his ship. He never answered, but the question got him crawling faster. I got to my feet and saw a portal toward the front of the Zaen ship. There were repeated flashbulb-like flashes emanating from it. I did not have a clue how to open the hatch and pounded on it a couple of times to no avail. Tria had ceased cloaking and was carrying a terrified Broza up the boarding ramp. She set him down in front of the hatch and I uncloaked so he could see it was me.

  “Broza, how many pirates are on your ship and how do I get the hatch open?”

  He seemed to stare in disbelief but his eyes finally locked on my face. “Mr. Myers! I was hoping Felix would contact you!”

  “Broza, open the hatch now!”

  He reached for the side of the hatch but it opened before he could touch it. Klutch stepped out and gave me a toothy grin and a blink of both his eyes. “I took care of the pirate scat, but the Throggs shot the ship up pretty bad.”

  Broza looked like he was going to freak out and pushed his way by Klutch. We heard him start wailing in disbelief and screaming “NO, NO, NO!”

  Klutch gave me another wink. “Commander, we need to get to the bridge and secure the comms.”

  I stepped into the Zaen ship and moved forward to where Broza stood shaking his head. “Broza, where are they holding Hylet?”

  The Zaen turned to me and his scaly skin was roiling. “They have destroyed my ships controls. My clan has lost its only means of transporting merchandise!”

  He was ignoring my question and could only think of his ship. I gave him a small shake and he finally focused on my face. “I will find you another ship! Where can we find Hylet?”

  That seemed to bring him to his senses. “They hold him on subdeck three!”

  Coonts came running up to us and we cloaked. “Tria, we are going for the bridge. If things get out of hand, be ready to evac Broza.”

  She nodded and waved us on. Klutch lead us to the lifts. They were good old-fashioned elevators. We piled in and Klutch hit the bridge level button. It was a high-speed lift because it only took a handful of seconds before the door opened again. There was a pirate standing in the corridor leading to the bridge. The look on his face said he was mystified as to why the empty car opened on this level. We all stood still hoping our cloaking systems kept us invisible until the pirate got close enough for us to overpower him. His stare intens
ified and his curiosity turned to suspicion. He pulled his fighting knife from his armor. My olfactory sensors were in void mode, and for good reason, Klutch’s suit was venting his scent non-stop. I suspected the pirate could easily smell it and was doing some stinking of his own. The pirate stopped in front of the elevator and extended his knife forward. The beast in me was going berserk and I reached out and grabbed the Tibor’s arm with both my hands. I jerked his elbow down and shoved his hand violently back, planting his fighting knife in one of his eyes. He started thrashing like a fish out of water as I jerked him into the lift and we quickly stepped out. Klutch hit the down button and we continued down the corridor.

  The next room on the right was weapons management systems. A pirate was asleep in a chair with his feet up on a console. Klutch extended his climbing hooks and stepped inside, closing the hatch behind him. I heard a thump come from the room. The door opened and Klutch stepped out into the corridor. I caught sight of a rapidly spreading pool of Tibor blood. Klutch closed the hatch and pointed at another on our left just up the corridor. Coonts happened to be out front and leaned into the open doorway. He stuck his hand back out holding up a single finger and then a fist so we would hold our position. The Oolaran beast felt differently and I stepped to the door just as the Grawl drove a climbing hook into the pirate’s throat, almost decapitating him. The pirate thrashed around and crash loudly to the floor. The beast in me surged forward and I was on the verge of letting out an insane war whoop.

  The hatch behind us opened and a Tibor stepped out yelling. “Grebber, if you are eating stim sticks again, I will space you!”

  He froze when he saw the nearly decapitated corpse. If it was Grebber on the deck, I was pretty sure the pirate would not get an answer to the charges. The pirate had his armor on but no helmet. It was a bad decision on his part. I jerked my arm back leading with the sharp protrusion on the end of my elbow. A gruesome ditch appeared in the Tibor’s face from his forehead to his jaw. He fell back into the doorway like he had been poleaxed. There was three more Tibor on the bridge and their eyes were as big as silver dollars. I was shoved from behind by Klutch as he stormed into the command station. Coonts was right behind him and there was no hiding the ruckus we were making. The Tibor were going for their weapons and we had no choice but to hose them down with our needle guns. Coonts was using his wonderfully smart Grawl brain and closed the hatch behind us. The three hostiles and everything behind them were engulfed in thousands of hypersonic hull alloy slivers. They might have survived had they been wearing their helmets, but now their bullet heads looked like deformed sponges. When the fragments quit ricocheting off the equipment and consoles, quiet returned to the room. Coonts checked the bodies and shook his head negative. I heard a gurgling groan coming from behind me that ceased with the stomping thump of Klutch’s armored boot. The beast was appeased by the gory mess, and my thoughts became mission-focused once more.

  “Klutch, check the corridor and see if anybody else heard the racket we were making.”

  I saw his outline open the hatch and disappear outside.

  “Coonts, find the comms and disable them.”

  Klutch stepped back onto the bridge. “All clear, Commander.”

  Coonts came over to us. “Our weapons wrecked the comms console.”

  Klutch lead us to the corner of the room and showed us the maintenance hatch on the floor. He reached down and turned the latch. The door slid to the side and we could see a dark tunnel leading straight down into the guts of the ship. A solid metal ladder pointed to our destination.

  I called Tria on my Backscatter transmitter. “Tria, the bridge is secure and we are moving to the lower decks now.”

  “Roger that, the hangar is secure and I will have Xul land our shuttle in bay number three. Broza is acting unstable and I want him secured aboard. We will be waiting to extract you.”

  Coonts wasn’t kidding when he said the Zaen’s were pretty weird about their ships. Hopefully Broza doesn’t go off the deep end while we are doing our thing.

  “Coonts, keep the bridge secure until we send Hylet up to you. As soon as you get your hands on him go straight to our shuttle in bay three. Make sure he doesn’t do anything crazy when he figures out we are not taking their ship with us.”

  He gave me a thumbs-up and headed to the corridor to bring the elevator back up so it would be open and waiting for their retreat. Klutch went down the ladder first and I climbed down after him. We hadn’t gone far when I felt him grab my boot.

  “Commander, look to your left. I want you to grab the pull handle on the side of that hatch and yank it downward. When you see an orange blinking light, push the hatch open. We must do this until we reach sublevel three.”

  I did as I was instructed. Looking down I saw Klutch doing the same to another hatch just below me. We went down a couple more levels and repeated the process. I felt another tug on my boot and stopped.

  “This is subdeck three’s maintenance hatch. We get out here and the brig should be at the end of the corridor. We must use caution and be as quiet as possible because we will be passing by the crew quarters.”

  “Roger that. I will follow your lead Troop Master.”

  He slid the release down on the hatch and opened it. It was dark down the corridor but the far end had a bright light illuminating the way to the brig. We could hear the rattling snores of several Tibor in a hatch to our left. To our right was a large archway that was the entrance to a latrine. Further down the corridor was another bunking area, then the brig. We made it past the first crew quarters and were halfway to the brig when we heard a noise in the latrine. Klutch slipped into the entrance and stepped around the wall that blocked a direct view into the room. I heard a fairly loud, wet-sounding smack and a grunt, then the distinct whoosh of a toilet flushing. I looked behind me and we got no reaction from the bunk room. Klutch stepped back out into the corridor and waved me on toward the brig. We came even with the second bunking quarters and a pirate walked out of the hatch and right into Klutch. The beast fed on my surprise and I came around with a punch that crushed the pirate’s cheek and eye socket. He fell backwards squalling out in agony. I don’t know what the Oolaran soldier in me was thinking. As if by magic a grenade appeared in my hand. The next thing I know, it seemed to jump into the bunk room without any effort on my part. Klutch slapped the close button on the hatch and jerked me down the corridor toward the brig. There was an impressively loud metallic clang and the hatch bowed outward.

  We made it to the end of the corridor. The brig was on the right and another hallway went left. Klutch pushed me at the brig doorway. “Get Hylet! He should be in there somewhere. This hall leads to the other crew quarters, I will be back after I have mined the passage.”

  I stood for another second and turned back to the doorway. It was made of a thick transparent material. Standing on the other side of it was a Tibor pirate squinting out at me. He could not see me, but he definitely knew something was wrong. There was a loud blast from the next corridor over and I wondered if Klutch needed my help. I didn’t know how to get the pirate to open the door so I headed in Klutch’s direction to give him a hand. No sooner than I turned my back, the pirate opened the door and rushed directly at me. He had no idea I was standing there. I spun around with my armored boot and kicked him in the face hard enough to crush his skull. He went down hard and did not move. I tromped over his body and ran into the brig. The forth enclosure down was where I found Hylet. He was down on the floor of the cell in the fetal position. I uncloaked and banged on the clear enclosure. Hylet rolled over and his coal black eyes looked like they could burst from their sockets. I forgot to clear my visor. He was looking at my war face and probably just wrecked the lower half of his uniform. I cleared the visor so he could see my face and was going to tell him I would get him out of there.

  It was as far as I got because I was blasted violently into the wall. I didn’t know what hit me but whatever it was had my weapons pack and launcher tube showin
g red and inoperable in my helmet. I rolled over and my minigun feed tube was flopping around. It would only do that if it was no longer connected to the ammo pack. My eyes refocused and I saw a pirate with a big rifle in his hands and he was drawing another bead on me. OH SHIT! THAT IS GONNA HURT! There was a tremendous blast that bounced me off the wall once again. The pirate was there one second and the next he was scattered about the room. Hylet was covering his head and curled up in the corner of his cell again. I was crawling on the deck when Klutch ran through the door.

  “ARE YOU INJURED, COMMANDER?”

  I shook my head and waved him off. “I’m glad you didn’t use anti-matter munitions.”

  My sarcasm was lost on him and he disappeared out the door again. Another series of explosions let me know all was not well. The thought of being trapped in here crossed my mind in a bad way. I got my head together and joined Klutch at the door.

  “Did you get a look at the rifle that Throgg shot me with?”

  “Yes, it was a Galactic Union heavy rail rifle. I believe they call them sniper rifles on your home world. It launches high explosive penetrators at very high velocities. It is a quality weapon. If they have more than one, we could be in trouble.”

  That was an understatement. I felt like I got hit across the back with a baseball bat. The Tibor pirates were better armed and trained than any Murlak troops we had come up against, and these guys weren’t dicking around. A homing grenade came flying down the corridor and Klutch shoved me back inside. He hit the hatch button and managed to get the door closed before it went off in our faces. I hoped like hell the door could stand up to the abuse. The explosion bowed the door inward but it snapped right back.

  Klutch looked at me with a toothy smile. “If I remember correctly, this door was one of the few items that my military liked about this ship.”