“I see,” said Nimoux, believing he understood better now, but still feeling strongly that Pellew was a liability to the integrity of their cause, if not an outright danger. But with nothing to substantiate it, and this being a less than ideal time to have the discussion, Nimoux decided to shelve the matter.
***
When the hatch had blown and his men stormed the Duchess, Pellew had expected little resistance. Nothing his teams couldn’t handle, in fact nothing that would give his teams any meaningful trouble, but still he’d expected some resistance.
Instead what they’d found were a number of empty decks and no organized resistance awaiting them whatsoever, so his soldiers cleared the decks and the rooms, one by one, swiftly.
“ODB, keep your eyes peeled for an ambush,” he said over the radio. Pellew himself commanded ODA and together the joint force, although consisting mostly of half-trained mercenaries rather than proper Special Forces soldiers, managed to capture section after section of the ship with the discipline of an invading army.
And yet still no resistance.
It wasn’t until Pellew’s team reached the top of deck, with only ladders leading to platforms above, that the first evidence of arms fire could be heard. It came from directly above and so Pellew ordered his men into positions of cover until he could ascertain the enemy’s position, then decide on the best angle of attack.
“Gunfire on the uppermost deck, forward section,” he radioed to ODB. “See if you can get around behind and flank them.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” came the reply.
But as Pellew listened closely to the sounds of the gunfire, trying to pinpoint where they originated and which ladders were under threat of fire, he got the distinct and confusing impression that the gunfire was localized to the upper platforms alone, with none of it concentrated on the invasion force below. Either the enemy was firing randomly, perhaps thinking to scare the invaders, or else…
They’re fighting among themselves, Pellew realized, as he heard the thud of a body drop on the platform above. This left him with two choices: wait it out letting his enemies kill themselves and spare any risk to his own men, or else storm them suddenly, from all sides, and overwhelm them in a blitz of unexpected firepower which clearly they were unprepared for.
Being an impatient man, Pellew chose the latter and relayed his instructions accordingly.
“Move, move, move!” he ordered over the radio. His men immediately sprinted up the ladders, rifles on their backs and sidearms in hand, so they’d be ready to fight the instant they got to the top. Pellew joined them.
He was fourth up the ladder on his side but, by the time he reached the Bridge, the fight was already over. His men had made short work of the survivors, killing everyone they found like he’d ordered, but the majority of the casualties suffered by the crew of the Duchess had clearly been self-inflicted. And not in a pact of desperate suicide, either. They hadn’t swallowed their own bullets out of fear they’d be captured or killed by the Imperial soldiers they knew were coming. Oh, no, what they’d chosen to do with their precious little time and weapons had been to slaughter each other.
Pellew stepped over the corpses; a crewman who’d been shot in the head, another that’d taken double-barrel buckshot to the chest, not pretty. Even the captain himself, Zander, was lying in a pool of his own blood. Only his corpse showed several lacerations and stab wounds rather than any obvious ballistic entry wounds. Next to him were the shot-up remains of what had once been a strikingly beautiful, curvaceous, dark-skinned woman. She’d taken a nine-millimeter to the head, which rather negatively affected her sex appeal, but her dead fingers were still wrapped around a bloodied knife which, clearly, had been Zander’s demise.
“Unbelievable,” said Pellew, taking in the scene in its entirety. Clearly the crew and its captain had its issues of discipline problems, but for them to come to a head in such a way, under such circumstances, was unlike anything Pellew had ever seen before. And he’d seen his share of the brutal and gruesome, the worst of which, until now, had been the time he’d led a team to storm a wanted criminal freighter and gone aboard only to find the ship's only occupants, a family of seven including children, had shot themselves, preferring death to capture. That was an image that’d stuck with him for a while, mostly because he’d been a rookie then, but this, this was mayhem of a sort he’d never heard of before. And, despite the mutilated corpses soaking in puddles of their own blood and the general gruesomeness of the scene, he couldn’t help but let out a laugh.
“Looks like they did themselves in, sir,” said First Lieutenant Ferreiro.
“You can say that again,” said Pellew, gently nudging Zander’s head with his boot. Making certain the curiosity before him was, in fact, dead.
“What are your orders now, sir?” asked Ferreiro. “Shall we contact the Nighthawk, inform them of our successful capture?”
“Not yet,” said Pellew. “Instead, I want you to put an extra bullet into each one of these,” he glanced around at the many corpses. “Just to make certain none of them surprises us from behind a few minutes from now.”
“Yes, sir,” he said. First Lieutenant Ferreiro had come aboard the Nighthawk along with the other mercenaries, but quickly proven himself to be the exception. Not only could Pellew trust him to perform whatever duty he asked of him, Ferreiro also showed quick mastery at skill of arms, had a natural instinct for tactical awareness, and shown himself to be a natural leader, proving to be a great help to Pellew in keeping the other, surlier mercenaries in line. And together, they’d turned the disorganized rabble into a relatively streamlined fighting unit. And so Pellew had awarded Ferreiro with the rank of First Lieutenant and given him command of ODB, keeping ODA, and the overall command, for himself.
“As for me, I’m going to go blow open the main cargo hold,” said Pellew. “Let’s get a count of those weapons.”
“Be careful, sir, there might be an ambush of them waiting for you in there,” said Ferreiro.
Pellew looked back down at the self-imposed slaughter of the Duchess’s crew and smirked. “Somehow, I doubt it.”
“Still…” said Ferreiro.
“Don’t worry, I’m taking ODA with me.”
Pellew left the upper platforms of the Bridge and headed for the cargo bay, the doors of which his team had spotted on the way in on deck one, conveniently not far from the main hatch. He radioed his team to meet him there and, by the time he arrived, several soldiers were waiting, including the staff sergeant who'd been tasked with carrying the explosive charges.
“Plastique along the edges, the frame, and the center,” commanded Pellew, and his men set the explosive goop just as he instructed. “Not too much, we want to blow the door, but not damage anything on the other side. Better too little than too much.”
When the plastique was set, he ordered his team safely around the corner and then lit the charges himself. He gave himself a fuse of twelve inches and found it more than enough to get to safety himself and then wait, somewhat impatiently, for the door to finally go. After a moment, it did. There was a loud bang followed by the sounds of metal shrapnel soaring into the bulkhead and clattering against the floor.
“Okay, let’s move,” said Pellew. He led the team, weapons drawn in case Ferreiro had been right and an ambush did await them, then stepped through the smoke and into the cargo hold. What he saw surprised him.
There was no ambush, no surprise there, and the hold was large enough to easily hold all fifteen at large isotome missiles, but instead of isotome missiles, they found a whole lot of nothing. Just empty space and some indications, like scratches on the floor and some dried-up fluid, that the other isotome weapons had been here, and recently, but were gone now.
The only consolation was the existence of one isotome missile, the one the Duchess had plucked from empty space not long ago.
“Shall we set the charge and radio the Nighthawk? Let them know we only found one weapon?” asked Ferreiro, who o
nly now was catching up to them, along with his soldiers from ODB.
“No,” said Pellew, looking at the missile. It was a thing of beauty in its own way. It wasn’t conventionally beautiful, wasn’t sleek nor did it have a mirror-shine or elegant curves, or any comely designs. If anything, it was a boxy, dirty-looking thing. But for all the potential it carried, as a weapon and a deterrent, and as the one thing in the galaxy which could somehow disrupt the stars themselves…stars that burned like great glowing gods, conceited and untouchable, scattered throughout the cosmos, and yet this tiny thing held the secret to their undoing. It reminded Pellew of an ancient myth he’d learned as a school child, of a sword so sharp it could cut the skin of an immortal titan. This was the living embodiment of that sword.
“What would you have us do, sir?” asked Ferreiro.
“We’re bringing it aboard the ship. Tell the Nighthawk nothing for now. ODA, help me carry this through the hatch and inside the Nighthawk. ODB, use the charges and set them throughout the ship on a timer.”
“Yes, sir,” his men replied. ODB went about setting charges in the ship’s most vulnerable areas, such as Engineering. ODA managed to carry the heavy missile through the blown cargo hold door and up and through the Nighthawk’s hatch on deck four, the one Pellew had deliberately chosen to use for the assault because it was actually large enough to stuff the missile through it, albeit barely.
Once they got the thing onto the floor of the corridor of the Nighthawk’s deck four, his men wanted to know where they were ultimately supposed to lug it. Pellew knew there was no way he could get it in the elevator and down the ladders to secure it in SFHQ on deck one, so the weapon would have to remain here on deck four. Since Commander Presley herself had quarters on this deck, along with a few other officers, although not many, and the forward section boasted the observation deck, which was a reasonably popular place for crewmen to visit, that left only the aft section of the deck for hiding the weapon.
“We’ll have to take control of the auxiliary lab. The doors are large enough and there is sufficient space for this in there.”
“What about the analysts there?” asked the staff sergeant.
Pellew had thought of that too. “We’ll have to take them below to SFHQ. Keep them occupied for now.”
“And if they try to leave?”
“Then we simply won’t let them. What do you think Kilo Protocol is for, anyway?”
Chapter 8
The longer they waited to hear from Pellew’s team, hearing nothing but silence, the more suspicious the situation seemed, at least to Nimoux. Looking around at the others, he believed he was alone in this. The helmsman, a distracted-looking dark-haired woman seemed more depressed to him than anything else; clearly she was somewhere inside her own head right now. As for the rookie at the defense station, he was silent and idle, probably feeling lucky to be sitting on the White Shift. Nimoux doubted the man, Mr. Roy, had much experience in these sort of situations and he seemed perfectly content to sit and wait, deferring to the command officers to detect and deal with anything that may’ve gone sour with the current mission. Even Summers, who, unlike the others, sat up straight, alert and vigilant, hadn’t said anything to indicate she was suspicious something had gone wrong, or that Pellew and his men were up to something. But Nimoux’s internal alarm bells were ringing loud and clear.
Perhaps it was because he used to be a Special Forces commander and had led boarding assaults of his own, but he knew keeping regular contact with the host ship was about as high a priority as possible. And yet, long into the assault mission, they’d been listening to nothing. Static. Dead air.
“Commander,” said Nimoux, deciding to speak up once again.
“Yes, Captain?”
“In my experience, there are both good and bad kinds of silence.”
“And you think this is a bad kind of silence?” asked Summers. She looked tense, and Nimoux suspected she was at something of a loss for what to do. She hadn’t wanted to reach out and contact Pellew for fear he was attempting some sort of stealth approach and the sound of the radio would give him away, but she also worried something had happened to him, such as the possibility Zander’s crew had overpowered the Nighthawk’s soldiers and now they were just sitting ducks. Nimoux suspected neither.
“Yes, Commander,” he said, turning his chair to face the center of the Bridge. “In my experience leading missions of this sort, the only two reasons why an away team would refuse to report in would be if something terrible has happened to them and they are unable to report in, such as loss of communication equipment, jammed signal, or total defeat in battle. Or, they could report in, but they choose not to do so because they have information which they do not wish to report.”
“Which do you suppose it is?” asked Summers, seeming genuinely concerned.
“I believe it’s the latter. I don’t think the former is possible unless Zander had set a very clever ambush for a boarding party he could not know would be coming; I believe it’s impossible Pellew and his forces were overwhelmed inside the Duchess. And, even if they had lost ground, it’s even less likely their communications equipment would have been destroyed in the first engagement. Same goes for a total loss of all personnel. Even in steady retreat, a team can radio their command ship in nine out of ten instances.”
“So then you believe Pellew and his men discovered something and they are choosing to delay informing us about it for some reason?” asked Summers. It was clear she took his advice seriously, but also that she found his concern, at least in this instance, a touch paranoid. “You really don’t trust Captain Pellew, do you?”
“I admit, I do not,” said Nimoux.
“Duly noted, Captain,” said Summers. “And what would you have me do?”
“Contact him. Demand a response, an update, something. If for no other reason than to remind him it’s his paramount duty to communicate information back to his host ship, especially if he’s our eyes and our ears on the enemy vessel.”
Summers nodded. “Perhaps you’re right.”
“Missive from the computer on deck four,” said Sarah, interrupting them. “The hatch has been sealed.” That could only mean everyone inside the Duchess who was coming aboard the Nighthawk had come aboard.
“See what I mean?” said Nimoux. Clearly Pellew and his men had returned to the ship, unless the very unlikely case in which Pellew’s forces had been wiped out and now the Nighthawk had been counter-boarded. But Nimoux dismissed this possibility, which meant Pellew had had ample opportunity to keep the Bridge appraised of his discoveries and activities and he’d chosen not to.
“Well,” said Summers, looking enraged at last. She tapped her intercom line which broadcast throughout the ship. But, before she could speak, the elevator door slid open. All heads turned to see Pellew, along with two soldiers, as usual, enter the Bridge. “Mister Pellew,” said Summers, angrily. “Why in hell did you fail to maintain regular contact with us? We haven’t heard a word from you since you boarded the Duchess. For all we knew you could have been killed!”
“I’m sorry about that,” Pellew said innocently. “I had a communications failure with my equipment, and so I ordered ODB to maintain regular contact with the Bridge. Since they failed to do so, I’ll have to have words with those damn mercenaries. My apologies, Commander.”
Summers looked at him, clearly tempted to believe him. After all, it would explain the situation and, as she’d put it herself, Pellew never failed to get the job done that they needed. She glanced at Nimoux, as if asking him what he thought. Nimoux narrowed his eyes, indicating he was hardly convinced.
“Make sure you discipline them accordingly,” said Summers, apparently choosing to give Pellew the benefit of the doubt or else not knowing what other options she had.
Nimoux turned back around to face the Ops console and decided to do a quick scan. He had records indicating the mass of the Nighthawk before the mission had occurred, so he decided it wouldn’t hurt to sc
an the ship’s mass now to see if anything suspicious, such as an isotome weapon, had been brought aboard.
“Now, Captain,” said Summers. “Please immediately give us a report as to what you found over there.”
Nimoux listened to the report while casually glancing at his Ops display, awaiting the results of the scan.
“It was the damndest thing, Commander,” said Pellew. “We stormed the ship and met no resistance. Then we took the Bridge and finally found the crew, but most of them were dead before we’d even gotten there. Apparently, they’d had some kind of a row and started killing each other. By the time my boys got to them, there were only a few still alive. They opened fire on us, so we put them down. The entire crew was dead in hardly a flash.”
As Nimoux listened, he wondered if these details were true. If he knew Pellew’s character, he did not doubt the crew was dead if Pellew said they were dead, but it could just as easily have been Pellew himself who’d ordered their execution rather than this tale of a self-destructive crew. Which, to Nimoux, certainly seemed too odd to be true, though he had to admit it wasn’t too odd to be possible. And it seemed a bit too creative for Pellew to come up with on the fly and tell with such apparent candor. Then again, he’d had ample time to invent whatever story he wanted…
“Did you find the isotome weapons and destroy them?” asked Summers, interrupting Pellew’s story. Clearly she wasn’t interested in the play-by-play but rather in the ultimate point. As far as Nimoux was concerned, good for her.
“We searched the ship, Commander,” said Pellew.
At that moment, Nimoux’s scan completed and, just as he’d suspected, there was a notable divergence in the mass of the Nighthawk before the mission and after. Specifically that it had gained 226.796 kilograms.
The Phoenix Darkness Page 16