Star Traders (Corporate Marines Book 3)

by Tom Germann

  In the boarding tube, the pirates hear the shots and hurry, reaching for the airlock control and trying to lean forward while running Patroe through at the same time.

  Patroe thinks about his family and duty, and while everything is flashing in black and white, he hits the detonator stud on the charge, blowing the boarding tube to bits and punching a small hole in the pirate ship.

  He and the pirate are vaporized in a small but powerful explosion, which also rips the boarding tube to shreds. With the boarding tube gone, atmosphere starts gushing from the Mama Pig, rapidly creating a whirlwind in the airlock.

  Two sees Derek being pulled from the floor and sliding toward the blown-open inner airlock. She grabs onto his barely moving form and pulls him to her chest to keep him from being blown out to space. As the internal atmosphere drops, more atmosphere escapes from Derek’s suit until Two pinches the tear shut partially.

  Smaller debris and pirate bodies start to blow out to space.

  As the ship’s computer detects the hole and atmospheric loss in the ship, it sets off several different sets of warning devices. When the few crew members around are not able to respond, the computer activates localized controls and starts closing off bulkheads to contain the breach.

  Eight limps over to Two and gives her a hand, with Derek walking down the main passage to leave the area. As they walk, Eight pulls out a patch from Derek’s suit and applies it to the leg rips. The amount of atmosphere leaking out is almost completely stopped, but there is still a bit of leakage. They can hear emergency bulkheads sliding into position and know they do not have a lot of time. The rip in Derek’s suit, while not bad, would mean his painful death in hard vacuum.

  The bulkhead ahead of them closes.

  Two is cradling Derek carefully and she clicks her comms on. “Terry, this is Two, are you there?”

  Background sirens are sounding as Terry responded. “Hi, Two. I am trying to fix a number of broken things here and turn off the damn sirens! What is it?”

  “Derek has a small puncture on his suit and we are trapped on the wrong side of the bulkhead in vacuum. Can you open the bulkhead and get us in?”

  There is only a half second of silence before Terry responds. “Yes, keep walking forward. I have to open the bulkheads in series and close them behind you. Just keep walking forward until you are in atmosphere and get Derek to sick bay.”

  The channel clicks off and Two holds Derek, with Eight half-leaning on her.

  Two and Eight start moving toward the bulkhead and have just arrived when it rolls open. As they advance, it closes behind them and they continue moving forward through two more bulkheads, at which point their sensors register atmosphere. After one more bulkhead, they are past the secured area and start moving toward sick bay.

  Eight stops trying to help and slows down to a painful limp. “Two, you can move faster than me. Get Derek to sick bay.”

  Two takes off at full speed and arrives in seconds. The only personnel manning the sick bay is the sick berth attendant, as the doctors and full nurse were on the first shuttle, which is still locked down.

  There is one crew member from environmental, who is an advanced first-aider and is acting as an assistant.

  Two briefs them on Derek’s leg injury and exposure to vacuum.

  Derek is placed on a secondary operating table and stripped down. He has lost a surprising amount of blood to the shrapnel and has passed out from shock. Two and Eight had been able to act fast enough that the other damage is minimal and the attendant feels that a few days’ rest will be sufficient.

  A gentle rumbling can be felt through the ship, indicating the pirate ship is disengaging and starting to head away.

  Two and Eight look at each other and remember the bomb on the hull. Two steps to the side of the operating room while the attendant cleans and seals Derek’s leg wound and connects him to a monitoring station.

  “Elise, this is Two, are you there?”

  “Hi, Two! I need you to hook up to a secure hard-wired line. I am sending video to you now.”

  Two connects to a hard-wired station by the door and opens the communication line again to view the video, thinking that Elise has finally opened the bomb and needs assistance in disarming it.

  The rumbling fades away. Two estimates that the other ship is three hundred metres away and coming off of thrusters, going to main engines.

  As the video opens, Eight joins her and both watch the departing ship slowly peeling away from the Mama Pig. It appears to be towing a small box.

  Two blinks, trying to figure out what she is looking at. “Elise, where is the bomb?”

  Elise comes back immediately, sounding cheerful. “Do you see the box hanging off the ship? That’s it. Before you ask, I was able to detach the magnetic clamps and I tried pushing it off the ship, but it wouldn’t work as the Pig has some gravity and it was too bulky. But I used the bolo gun and attached the magnets to the pirate ship, tied the cable around the bomb, and then activated the winch built into it. I had to go real slow, but was able to get the bomb within a few metres of the ship. I then was able to get another magnetic clamp between the pirate ship and the bomb. I figured that the pirates could tow this thing away. If we are lucky, the bomb stays with them for a few kilometres and then they detonate it and blow themselves up. Or at least they tow it far enough away that when it finally shears off, it will be too far away to harm us.”

  Two and Eight just stare at each other. Then Eight laughs and tells Elise, “Good job, kiddo! It won’t stay with them that far, but it should be far enough away from us that we are not at risk. Come back inside just in case, and give us a hand on clean-up.”

  “No problem, Eight. I am coming in.”

  Eight starts suddenly, slumps over against the sick bay wall, and slides to the floor. Two moves to his side, already setting up a computer link and evaluating his injuries. They are bad.

  “Eight, why didn’t you seek medical help faster? Or let us know how bad the leg injury was?”

  Eight chuckles faintly. “Duty comes first. Leave me here with the attendants. I’ll give them the data packets on how to treat a Marine in armor. You need to get out there and make sure that the ship is clear. Lock the door on the way out; I don’t want some last bad guy running in here shooting when he realizes he is dead no matter what.”

  Two sends the medical station a data squirt with the medical info on how to treat a Marine in armor and how to get around the safety interlocks. She verifies that they have it and that they’ll ask questions if they do not understand something, then she picks her loaded weapon up and goes to clear the ship.

  Two sweeps through quickly, verifying every alien is dead and checking to make sure that no surprises have been left behind to further disable the ship. There is nothing. The ship is clear of living aliens.

  The rest of the crew has stayed secured while she sweeps to make sure that any movement throughout the ship is hostile and she can engage immediately.

  She sounds the all-clear when she finishes. She is just outside of the engineering command centre and sees the heavy door is open. There is one spot on it where the laser cutter had started.

  She sticks her head in and sees Terry hunched over one of the command stations, working on its exposed circuits.

  Two calls out to her, “Terry, how is the reactor?”

  Terry had flinched when Two called out, but never stops working. She replies, “It’s okay. I have most of the damage that they started sorted out now. I am just finalizing some repairs so they hold for a while, then I will start dealing with the combat damage as soon as we have some damage-control personnel available.” She pauses while stripping some wires and twisting them together. “I heard that you and Eight brought Derek in with his injuries. Thank you.”

  If anyone else had been there to see, they would have seen the large shiny metal Marine nod its h
ead and then look down at the floor as if undecided. Before Two can make up her mind on how to continue, Terry does it for her.

  “I also heard that Patroe set off a demo charge on the alien ship and that he’s dead.”

  Terry never stops feverishly stripping wires and twisting them together. “It’s what he would have wanted, saving all the rest of us as he was trained to do. The ship comes first, Two. It always comes first.”

  Terry stands up and puts the panel back on the board and turns to look at Two. “They are going to need your help opening the shuttles up, and some of the secured rooms as the hatches are heavy. Patroe gave his life to save us; that is not your fault. If you had been allowed to armor up before the pirates hit, well, maybe this would have gone differently. Maybe not. I can’t collapse now. I have to keep the ship alive. So do you. So get to work, Marine.”

  Two nods at Terry and takes off, querying the computer on where her presence will do the most good.

  THE AFTERMATH

  Snyrl, Sue and four other crew members are known to have been killed in action. The saboteurs had killed three other crew members at the beginning; they were discovered shortly after the end of the action.

  It takes Two and a team three hours to get the different hatches and doors open to free all the trapped crew.

  It’s at that point when they receive the last nasty surprise left by the saboteurs. The secondary shuttle had been tampered with; the air supply had been compromised by a fast-acting poison. The entire crew trapped on board died before the pirates even came aboard.

  It comes as a huge shock to the crew, and while they can deal with the damage to the ship, no one is willing to deal with the corpses of their friends. Two enters the shuttle, still in armor, and picks up one crew member at a time.

  She is trained and has seen her first combat. But to walk on board a shuttle that everyone else has turned away from and carefully pick up body after twisted body, carrying them to a small shipping container that has a freezer, was not in her training. She turns off her emotions and tries to respectfully transport bodies that had died twisting and writhing in pain as a fast-acting poison stole their life. There are not enough body bags, so she has to use sheets. It takes her an hour to move them. The rest of the crew refuses to enter the passages that she travels.

  When the last crew member is released and the bodies are away, Two goes back to her room, strips down, checks and clears her armor, and then has a hot shower.

  No one bothers her.

  When she finishes the shower, she goes back to helping lay out power lines to replace the bits that have been damaged, as well as circuits. A simple replacement hatch for the outside is fabricated and put into place.

  There is no effort made to re-pressurize those sections of the ship until the inner hatch for the airlock is put in place and then sealed.

  After two days of hard work, the Mama Pig is cleared to move under its own power and the captain calls a day of rest.

  A skeleton crew is on watch while everyone rests and the crew tries to recover.

  The initial rescue operations are cancelled when sensor sweeps are conducted and the station registers no life or energy signs. Only a few hours after the pirate ship departs, the signal from the station cuts out.

  The trap had worked, but had not been able to hold the ship.

  Eight is fixed up and released with a large cast on his leg to stimulate regrowth of damaged tissue. Derek is able to interact with others by the beginning of the day of rest. Two just goes back to the cabin and sleeps.

  Terry stays buried in work, fine-tuning the fabricators so that they will have a better outer airlock door later.

  The captain holds a short service for the crew and stays with work parties until the ship is on its way. After that, he stays on the command deck.

  The ship arrives at the colony planet five days late and moves into local space, where they are challenged and debriefed by the small orbiting Corporate space station.

  Two and Eight move to another one of the airlocks to board their in-system shuttle so that they can go to their new positions. Derek, Elise and Terry are waiting at the airlock for them.

  Derek walks over to Eight and sticks his hand out. “Thank you, Eight.” Eight smiles while he shakes the offered hand and then turns and chats with Elise.

  Next, Derek walks up to Two and throws his arms around her in a bear hug. He doesn’t even come up to her shoulders. Two wraps her arms around him and hugs him back, hard.

  “Thank you for training me and Elise. Thank you for saving me when I was hit. I know it wasn’t your fault about my dad….” He trails off and squeezes her tighter.

  Terry looks close to tears while she watches.

  Two meets her eyes. “Everyone on this ship did their job. We won. The pirates are dead and didn’t get the ship or any cargo. They lost much more. You all need to stay vigilant and be ready in future. You were lucky to have us this time.”

  She squeezes Derek even harder for a second and then releases him and steps back. “Be safe, Derek. Always keep your guard up and never fall into any sort of routine. That’s the fastest way to get you and your people dead.”

  Two and Eight nod to the three crewmembers and board the shuttle.

  Six days later, the Mama Pig leaves distant orbit and heads back to Earth space.

  Upon arrival in the Sol System, the news crews are all over the ship, bombarding it constantly with requests for information.

  The Corporation has prepared for this and had previously locked down all legitimate communication channels. Using its legion of lawyers, it has legally blocked all communications unless they go through Corporate channels.

  That legion goes into action and lawsuits shut down all attempts to force the issue. Unknown to most of the world, a fierce war rages in courtrooms for days between the Corporation and assorted enemies. At the end, those opponents were defeated again and the Corporate response is pushed forward.

  The actual details of what happened are released slowly.

  Humanity is in love with deep space but is also afraid. Too many truths had been destroyed with first contact.

  So the attack is played and released carefully so that Earth is outraged and scared. The extremists are not given anything to work with.

  WHAT IS THE TRUTH

  Out in deep space after a supply pickup, Two and Eight have adapted to their section and are fitting in. They receive the news reports seven weeks after it’s release in the Sol System. Two cannot believe what she is watching and hearing.

  She turns to Eight. “That’s not how it happened.”

  Eight nods agreement as he keeps watching the screen. “Yup. The Corporation modified what happened.”

  Two glares at Eight; his statement infuriates her. “There is no mention of the saboteurs. Everything was blamed on the pirates and there is no mention of any of the screw-ups. They are saying the captain responded well when he caused some of those deaths with his slow responses.”

  Eight keeps watching the screen and talks to Two without looking at her. “You were briefed like I was, Two. The Corporation has enemies that would cut spending. If it became common knowledge that humans were helping aliens to take a human ship? Now in this case that would be bad, real bad.”

  Eight freezes the clip and turns to look at her directly. “Humanity needs heroes out here. Everyone has to know that the best of the best are out exploring, mining and building trade routes. They are the best. The captain was just outside of his area of expertise and didn’t respond well enough or fast enough. It worked out. Humanity needs to be ready for what is out here and be unified, or they’ll tear themselves apart back at home. You know, there are those who say we should stay in our own system and fortify it.”

  He turns back toward the screen and points at Derek, who has just come on. “Just listen to what he says, and is h
e right to be saying this?” He hits play and the footage continues rolling.

  Eight starts the screen and Derek is sitting down. Bradley Shmidt smiles at him and the screen zooms in until the two fill it.

  Bradley starts, his smooth, calming voice filling the room. “Hi Derek, I want to thank you for taking the time to come and talk to my viewers before you head back shipboard.”

  Derek smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “No problem, Bradley. I have talked to a lot of people on Earth for the last few days and I have to say that you are the best. I only have a few minutes before I have to head out, though, so I am afraid I have to keep this short.”

  Bradley nods. “I understand, my viewers are feeling your crew’s loss and they are really feeling your personal losses with a tremendous outpouring of support – and even offers of marriage, I understand?” There is quiet laughter in the background at that and Derek smiles while his face turns pink.

  Derek looks down and the smile seems more natural when he looks back up at the sensor. “Well, I am a bit too young to marry right now. But if any of those young ladies want to come to space in a few years, we can see.” The laughter is louder this time.

  Bradley smiles and then his expression turns more serious. “Derek, I know you have minutes before you have to go. The big question is: Do we want to be in deep space? Is it worth the risks?”

  Derek looks at Bradley and his expression is cold. Then he turns so that he is facing the sensor. His eyes stand out as he stares into the sensor. “Bradley, we have to be in deep space. The resources are readily available and the scientific research is hugely important so that we gain more knowledge. If the Marines had not been on the ship, then this may well have gone differently and I would not be here. Those Marines saved my life and other crew members’ lives. They are ready to stop other pirate attacks and keep humanity safe as we go out to those distant stars. I have heard people talking about humanity just staying in the Sol System. We have enough resources and space to grow for a long time.”