“I wasn’t expecting this.”
“I know,” he replied. “Lane left some pretty big shoes to fill, but I’m confident you can do this.”
“I’ve never even served as a watch officer.”
“You’ve commanded a ship. I think that trumps it. Look, you’d probably have got the promotion when we got back anyway, but I think you’ve earned the right to get it ahead of schedule. Hell, if you haven’t, I can’t think who has.”
“Thanks,” she said, “I accept.”
“Good. You’ve got a lot of work to do, and your first job will be…”
“Integrating my people from Hercules into the ship’s complement.”
“See what I mean? Oh, I want a report on Hydra Station and what we can expect out that way on my desk before we jump. Assuming we can get the internal networks working again, that is.”
“I’m sure Quinn will manage something.”
“Dismissed, Lieutenant,” he said, stressing the rank. She smiled and walked out of the room, sliding nimbly through the door, as Marshall sat back at his desk again, looking at the flickering starfield. Fifteen dead, and perhaps more to follow, but at least they had clear stars again. The remnants of the Cabal fleet were still licking their wounds, and there was no way they could guess their destination this time.
The crew was back together again, and they were going home.
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Watch out for Battlecruiser Alamo #8: Stars in the Sand, coming in September...
For a sneak preview of the first spin-off from the Alamo series, Spitfire Station: Triple-Cross, keep reading….
The shuttle tossed around in the storms of Kumar, trying to ride the waves of thunder; lightning flashed as Logan Winter, acting commander of Spitfire Station, peered out of his viewport. The weather report he’d coaxed out of the station’s sensors hadn’t been promising, but he didn’t have the luxury of waiting for the storm to abate before closing in. Through a gap in the clouds, he saw what he was looking for; an object seemingly floating in the sky, a huge balloon with some small modules strapped to its underside.
Though it appeared motionless, Logan knew that it was traveling at hundreds of miles an hour, the currents throwing it across the sky. With a sweep of his hand, he zoomed in on the target; it seemed to be intact, and there was no sign that anything was docked to any of its locks. His eyes drifted up, catching a cluster of small dots up above, diving down towards them, flying in a lop-sided formation. He slammed down on a button.
“Ryder, tell me we haven’t got fighters incoming!”
His pilot – and executive officer, he’d been forced to strip the station’s meager personnel bare in order to pull off this little operation – replied after a brief second, “Want me to lie to you, sir?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“They are fighters, but civilian. Diamond runners.”
“You’re sure?”
“That’s what the manifest says.”
“So you aren’t sure. Stand by on evasive maneuvers if we need them.”
Gritting his teeth in frustration, Logan turned to the cabin. Four espatiers, the finest troops he’d been able to scrounge from Alamo before it left, were sitting in full equipment; Harper – his pet hacker – was sitting in the midst of the military in a borrowed civilian spacesuit, the helmet resting in her lap, a grin on her face.
“Skipper?” Lance-Corporal Volski said. “You going to tell us what we’re doing out here?”
“We’ve got reason to believe that some of the pirates Alamo chased out of the system are holed up in this aerostat. We want them – alive, at all hazard. Brass wants some people for trial.”
“That’s it?” Harper said. “What am I here for?”
“I want to own their systems as soon as we touch down. Anything that’s in the databanks needs to be secure – encrypted so that only I can access it.”
“Just you?”
“Just me.”
Volski looked around at his troops, and with resigned looks on their faces they stowed their rifles underneath their clips, replacing them with puny-looking dart guns. Meyer, the lone female trooper, shook her new weapon with disgust, the pistol small in her hand.
“Come on, gang, we know how to do this. We expecting trouble, boss?” Volski said.
“Always,” Logan replied. “That’s usually safest.”
“Closing for docking, sir,” Ryder said over the intercom. “Hold on to something, this is going to be rough.”
The pilot’s prediction was correct. The shuttle bounced off the side of the aerostat four times before – more by luck than judgment – Ryder managed to mate the two docking connectors. With a reassuring clang and a hiss, the latches engaged, though immediately the ride grew worse. When they were in free flight, Ryder had been able to compensate for the disturbance. Now they were being thrown from side to side, lurching around; Logan tumbled from his seat onto the floor as Harper laughed.
“Not funny,” he said.
“It’s very funny,” she replied, as she started to pull off her spacesuit.
“What are you doing?”
“If we’re being thrown around this much, we’ll damage something. That and I don’t like those things anyway.”
“And if the station is holed?”
“Then wearing a suit will just give me more time to enjoy the view on the way down.”
Logan looked at Volski, nodded, and said, “Good point. Corporal, you want the suits or not?”
Glancing around at his squad, the corporal shrugged, “I think she’s right. I wasn’t expecting it to be this bad.”
“Great,” Meyer said. “No real weapons, no armor. This mission’s turning into a full-on Charlie Foxtrot.”
Shedding his spacesuit into a pile on the floor with practiced ease, Logan pulled out a dart gun that superficially looked like the ones the espatiers were using, and made his way over to the airlock. The camera pickup showed nothing but darkness, and he gestured over to Harper.
“Lights, maestro?”
Nodding, she walked over to a terminal and started to type; almost immediately, the lights came on, and she exchanged a look with Logan. Volski walked forward, blocked by an outstretched arm from Logan.
“That was too damn easy.”
“Yeah,” Harper replied. “Hold on a moment.”
She continued to work her controls, playing the keyboard as an expert would play the piano, and after a few seconds a grin began to spread across her face.
“Well?”
“Nasty little trick with the docking clamps. We’d have been thrown back out into the atmosphere.”
With a sigh, he replied, “Can you…”
“Override it?” she interrupted. “Already done.”
Nodding, Logan tapped the control, and the two doors slowly jerked open. He took a tentative step forward, gun low by his side, and looked out into a long corridor, running the length of the habitation module. A small pile of used food containers decorated the floor, and a brown-stained overall was hung limply on a hook. Volski walked in by his side, his pistol outstretched, eyes darting around.
“We should go first, boss,” he said, but Logan shook his head.
“I need to lead from the front this time. I’ll take point, you guys check the rooms as we go. Be alert for more traps.”
“You don’t need to tell me twice.”
Leaning back into the airlock, Logan yelled, “Close up behind us, Ryder. In case you get any surprise guests.”
In response, the hatch slammed shut, this time far m
ore quickly. Logan was beginning to get the idea that his assistant wasn’t particularly fond of him. He walked cautiously down the corridor, looking around, while the espatiers methodically searched each room. Harper ran up by his side.
“Why are you making them search?” she whispered. “They aren’t going to find anything.”
“Not here, no. My guess is that they’re up in the control room.”
She looked at him, green locks dropping down over her eyes, “You don’t guess. You know.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Observation.”
“Harper, you know just enough to be damned dangerous.”
Volski jogged up behind them. “Nothing in this section, sir.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Just some quarters, obviously in use. No sign of any documents or data crystals, computers dark.”
“Harper, shouldn’t you work on that?”
She shrugged, “You think I could have knocked out that trap without breaking into their system? I’ve already got everything copying over onto the shuttle computers.”
With a thin smile, Logan said, “Let’s get moving, then. Corporal?”
He waved the espatier into position by his side; the troops positioned themselves to be alert for any sudden movement, any threat, and waited for the door the open. With a gentle tap, Volski opened the door, and a loud crack issued forth; Meyer immediately returned fire, and there was a sudden snap from the other compartment.
“Hold fire,” Volski said, peering in. An empty spacesuit lay on the floor on the other side of the door, sprawled on the deck with a dart sticking in it; another crack sounded from a box placed next to it, and Logan grinned.
“They’ve got a sense of humor, anyway.”
“Not funny,” Meyer said. “Not funny at all.”
“Just be glad the bullets aren’t real today,” Harper added with a grin.
“They aren’t real yet,” Logan said. “Go search; Harper and I will wait here.”
Splitting into two pairs, the espatiers moved into the next compartment, methodically searching the two long rooms. The aerostat lurched to the side, sending them tumbling into the wall, and another crack sounded from up ahead, followed by a pair of shots, and another crack.
“That isn’t a speaker,” Logan said. “Come on.”
His pistol in his hand, he sprinted down the corridor, ducking and rolling into one of the side rooms. Meyer was lying on the ground, twitching; a discarded dart was by her side. Volski was in cover behind a long bank of controls, and there was a shape moving up ahead. Of all the places to choose for a gunfight, Refinery Control was probably one of the worst.
He glanced over at Volski and blinked three times in quick succession, making certain that the gunman couldn’t see him. The corporal curtly nodded, and nestled back into cover. Counting down in his head, when he reached three he jumped out of his hiding place, shouting and waving his arms about, creating a distraction that lasted just long enough for Volski to get in his shot. With a satisfactory snap, the gunman collapsed to the deck.
“Good shot,” Logan said, moving forward.
“Thanks, skipper,” he replied. “Meyer’s fine. They’re using darts too.”
“She’ll have a hell of a hangover, though,” Logan replied. He slipped a small needle from his pocket, and stabbed it into the gunman, who slumped onto the deck. The tranq shot would keep him out for the better part of a day, long enough that he’d wake up in a nice, comfortable – and quiet – cell back on Spitfire.
“This one’s out cold. No need to put a guard on him, we’ll pick him up on the way back.”
“I’ll get Meyer back to the shuttle, skipper.”
The aerostat jerked to the side again, a strong gust of wind pulling it out of place. If anything, the storm was getting worse; he was beginning to get a little worried about the docking connectors.
As Volski picked up Meyer, throwing her into a shoulder lift, he walked out into the corridor. The other two espatiers were waiting, standing ready in the corridor, with Harper leaning quietly against a wall.
“Nothing in the other room?”
“Storage compartment, sir. All secure.”
Nodding, Logan said, “There’s a prisoner in there; go and search him. Keep your ears open; if I need you, I want you back out in the corridor in a heartbeat.”
The two troopers walked into Refinery Control; as soon as they had left the corridor, and Volski had made his way through the hatch, Logan walked over to the opposite end, his pistol at the ready. Before he could open the door, Harper stepped out in front of him.
“Stand aside,” he said.
Her head tilted to the side, she replied, “Why did you want the troopers here if you don’t intend to take them with you?”
“In case I need backup.” Glancing around, he continued, “Finished? I’m in a hurry.”
She shrugged, stood to the side, and opened the door with the touch of a button. The view on the other side almost sent Logan reeling back to the wall. The forward module was not connected with a hard lock as were the other two modules; the access to the command station was across a long, underslung tunnel – and someone had decided to make it transparent. No doubt it had seemed a wonderfully aesthetic design choice when the aerostat was first constructed, but right now it was making him sick to his stomach.
Clutching his pistol tight on his hand, he edged out into nowhere, cautiously planting first one foot, then the other, as if he was walking on the clouds. That the corridor was swinging gently from side to side didn’t help, and flashes of lightning surrounded him, swirling amidst the orange and purple. Every step was torture as he forced himself into the void, a voice inside his head telling him that he was going to fall, that there was nothing under him, that this was suicide.
Another blast of lightning, and he was tossed from his feet once again, his hands reaching for a non-existent handrail. The invisible floor was soft, but it still knocked the wind from him; he edged across on his hands and knees. Someone was using this as psychological warfare, and it was damned effective. While most of his mind was terrified, another part was noting this as a useful tactic to employ in the future.
Finally, he reached the hatch at the far end, panting for breath. Everything was just about going to plan thus far, but he paused while he dragged the tattered shreds of his sanity back together again, making himself ready for the fray. Taking a deep breath, pistol in hand, he tapped the control to open the door.
He walked inside, gun at the ready, ducked nimbly into cover behind a convenient pile of boxes, and with a pull of the trigger he sent a figure tumbling down to the deck. Four others were positioned to cover the entrance, but he quickly made out their positions, and tapped a control on his gun, switching it to image acquisition, and sliding a datachip into the butt of this pistol.
Waiting impatiently for a green light, he looked around the room, scanning the consoles with care; all systems seemed to be functioning normally, but the most critical controls were up ahead in the master control section. Finally, the gun was ready to fire, and pointing it up into the air, he squeezed the trigger four times, sending four homing darts flying across the room. They instantly ranged into their targets, and with a series of crackles, they dropped down to the floor, limp.
Carefully pulling himself to his feet, Logan walked from person to person, slipping each of them a strong tranquilizer; he didn’t want them to be talking for a while. He turned with a start as he saw a figure in the corridor behind him, her arms crossed; only his cautious instincts prevented him from shooting Harper in the chest.
“That’s a nice toy. Why doesn’t everyone have one?”
“It’s only useful in certain situations.”
She nodded, “Such as when you have full biometric data on the people you are hunting down? What the hell is going on?�
��
“I was under the impression that enlisted spacemen do as their officers tell them.”
“Forgive me for providing corrections to your world-view.”
With a smile, Logan replied, “Close and lock that hatch behind you. This isn’t the trap I was fearing, and the two of us will be enough to do the job.”
She complied, then turned back, saying, “Well?”
“There is more to this than I can say. Suffice for the moment that yes, I knew who would be here, and yes, I was expecting all of this. Except for that damn tunnel.”
“That’s why you wanted to stay behind when Alamo left, regardless of what the ship was doing.”
“Exactly.” He took a deep breath, then said, “Look, you are basically in Intelligence now, whether you like it or not…”
“Actually, I do.”
“Which means that should anything happen to me, a file will miraculously appear in your little secret archive that will give you full information, as well as a couple of parting gifts. Until then, I need you to accept that there are things I can’t tell you.”
“Why?”
“Because I…”
“No, why the hell do you trust me?”
With another grin, Logan said, “A hacker of your skill? I haven’t got much choice, have I?” He glanced up at the door. “Come on. If you are going to be here, you might as well make yourself useful. Cover me.”
Logan walked over to the far end of the room, and gently tapped the door with a smile, darting through before Harper could follow and slamming it shut behind him. His gun was still in his hand as an afterthought, but he turned around to see a tall, dark man with a beaming smile standing in front of the master control complex, a pistol stuffed into his belt. Logan approached him cautiously.
“You took your time,” the figure said.
“Damn it, Bernie, what the hell was with that corridor? I almost had a heart attack.”
Battlecruiser Alamo - 7 - Battlecruiser Alamo: Sacred Honor Page 23