“We’ve got problems,” Jennings announced through the intercom as the Brigandine slowly turned its auxiliary weapons to bear. “Hang on! Going evasive!”
The Brigandine was essentially unmovable without main power and her torpedo launcher was destroyed, but the plasma cannons could function on reserves and they packed a lot more punch than the Melody Tryst did. Fix and Lafayette both arrived at the bridge from where they had been standing by at the boarding hatch just as the first salvo of flak ravaged the Melody Tryst’s shields. Lafayette was thrown sideways as the ship lurched violently to the starboard while Fix easily got settled and fastened in.
“Shields are down to sixty-seven percent,” Fix reported grimly. “Moderate leakage through to the hull. No breeches.”
“Marquis, dammit, sit down and get me an approach vector!” Jennings ordered.
“Keep circling,” Lafayette said as he pulled himself into the co-pilot’s seat.
Another salvo sailed passed them, barely missing. “Squawk, where are my torpedoes?” Jennings shouted into the intercom, barely avoiding another barrage as the Melody Tryst did a flip-roll.
“Working! Working! Working!” came the excited shout over the sound of what could only be a sledgehammer smacking against a bulkhead.
“They’re trying to keep their engine away from us,” Lafayette said suddenly. “If we can get around them to the stern, we’d have a straight shot in.”
“They have an aft reserve launcher on that ship,” Jennings argued.
“Use the interceptors and punch through,” Lafayette fired back. “It’s the only path that doesn’t allow their main guns to get a bearing on us.”
“Fine, give Minerva the telemetry,” Jennings ordered as another blast rocked the ship.
A cacophony of alarms and red lights sounded all around them as Jennings tried desperately to keep the ship under control.
“Hull breech, guest quarters,” Fix said calmly. “Drop doors are in place, but shields are buckling. Hull showing severe portside damage.”
“Minerva, are you ready?” Jennings shouted over the caterwaul.
“At your leisure, captain,” the cool female voice replied.
“Punch it!” he ordered.
The sublight afterburners on the Melody Tryst kicked on, taking the ship on an elliptical path toward the rotating Brigandine so as to always keep the rear of the ship at the Melody Tryst’s nose. They were essentially hiding in a narrow blind spot for the Brigandine’s main weapons as they made their approach.
“Torpedo launching!” Lafayette shouted.
Quickly Jennings activated the interceptors and a column of blue fire raced from the Melody Tryst and intercepted the white streak which would have turned his ship to slag.
“Firing again!” the first mate shouted. “And a third!”
“Interceptors running hot,” Fix called.
The interceptors were only able to lock onto one target at a time with how fast torpedoes moved. They blew up the first of the two, and Jennings had to throw the ship into a complicated swoop roll to buy the interceptors enough time to take out the last torpedo. As he came out of the maneuver, Jennings locked his plasma cannons onto the aft launcher sent a green cannonade that reduced the launcher to slag.
“Ten seconds and then we’re past the Brigandine!” Lafayette shouted.
“And in her gun sights once more,” Jennings said through gritted teeth. “Squawk!”
“Now!” the engineer shrieked.
Without hesitation, Jennings depressed the torpedo trigger and sent a new salvo of explosives streaking toward the Brigandine. The massive fireball that ensued took out the Brigandine’s guns and opened holes in the hull in the cargo bays, crew quarters and engineering. The Melody Tryst streaked past the now crippled ship without drawing more fire and Jennings gently turned her back around.
Flicking on the ship to ship transmitter, he announced, “Brigandine, prepare to be boarded.”
“Why are you warning them?” Fix demanded.
“It’s what they always say in the movies,” Jennings replied.
Chapter 12
1
The Brigandine was drifting slowly in space, rotating slightly as Jennings came back around and matched its rotation so that they could dock with it. He had already sent Lafayette and Fix back to the breach hatch, and had turned on the ship’s automatic internal defenses, just in case the crew of the Brigandine thought their only hope was to charge the Melody Tryst as soon as they docked.
Jennings checked the readings-they were within a meter of the other ship’s hull. With the press of a few buttons, he heard the whirring of the umbilical being extended echoing through the ship, and then felt a shudder as it connected and formed a seal against the Brigandine. Quickly, he leapt up from the pilot’s chair and hot-footed it out of the bridge and down to the hatch.
“You’ve got the conn,” he shouted over his shoulder back to Squawk, who pulled himself to attention and saluted.
As he approached the other two men, Lafayette said, “They’ve got air on the other side. They might be waiting for us. Grenade?”
Jennings nodded, “Grenade.”
“Hurry up and get ready,” Fix growled.
The other two were already in their space suits and battle helmets. The Brigandine had been opened to space in several areas and if her emergency airlocks were compromised, they could run into vacuum while they were on board. As fast as possible, he jumped into his space suit and locked the gloves and boots to the rest of the suit. The helmet came next; it was sleek compared to most EVA gear, but it was still going to be cumbersome to fight in. He heard the helmet snap into place and then picked up his gun belt, reattaching the firepower around his waist. Fix tossed him a compact automatic plasma weapon with a flashlight on top. It looked rather tiny in his hands.
“Is this really enough?” he asked as he slung the weapon’s strap over his shoulder.
“That’s your back-up piece,” Fix pointed out as he handed over a four foot long ammo-box fed rail gun that had a collapsible tripod.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Jennings said as he hefted the massive weapon. “Long time no see, darling,” he added patting the weapon gently. “Now, we’ve got enough fire power,” he observed, noting the sniper rifle and the rotating eight barrel automatic that Lafayette carried, and the incendiary round pump-action rifle that Fix carried. “What’s with the crossbow?” he added, looking at the weapon on the back of Fix.
“You never know,” he said cryptically. “Now, let’s get this fuckin’ show on the road.”
Jennings punched another command into the console at the floor hatch and there was a sudden burst of light as the laser saw created an aperture in the Brigandine’s hull. As soon as it was opened, Lafayette yanked up on the floor hatch, hurled a grenade through the umbilical and the hole in the Brigandine’s hull. He slammed shut the hatch just as quickly and waited until another flash of light pulsed through the window plate.
“Après vous,” he said with a smile to Jennings as he pulled the hatch open once more.
Jennings dove head first into the umbilical, allowing his momentum to carry him through the gravity-less atmosphere until he popped through the opening in the Brigandine, arriving in a hallway. The ship’s artificial gravity grabbed hold of him hard and slammed his feet back to the ground, giving him a weird feeling of nausea. The grenade had seared the hallway they were in, and had taken out one of the Brigandine’s crew. The body was lying against the corridor’s wall, a long scorch mark running the length of his uniform.
With amazing speed for a dead body, the crew member whipped out a plasma pistol, but Jennings casually raised his rail gun and sent a stream of energy through his entire body. He was definitely dead the second time.
“Problem?” Lafayette asked as he arrived in the corridor, followed a moment later by Fix.
“Nope,” Jennings answered. “Let’s see if we can find a working computer outlet. And be careful.”<
br />
The Brigandine’s internal alarms had been thankfully silenced before they arrived, but the flashing red lights on the ceiling and the pulsing emergency lights on the floor combined eerily with the smoke from the explosions and damaged ship components to create the sensation of wading through a bloody mist. It was a hellish sensation, Jennings thought to himself.
They had not seen anyone else since Jennings took out the one stray crew member, and that made everyone nervous. They knew they were outnumbered, and there was no way they could have been lucky enough to take out nearly the entire crew with their attack. With each corridor they navigated, they expected an ambush to come out of every open door. That necessitated a certain amount of deliberation in how quickly they moved and it was a very slow process to move toward the ship’s bridge. That worked for the crew of the Brigandine- the longer they could keep the boarders at bay, the more likely help was to arrive from another of Santelli’s ships. The Melody Tryst would not stand a chance in another battle, especially not with Squawk in command.
“Here,” Fix suddenly growled, pointing to an open room that was still well-lit.
Stepping through carefully, Jennings swept his rifle from left to right, making sure the room was empty. It was. There were two surgical beds in the room, a long shelf full of medical supplies, and cabinets with missing doors that had apparently spilled their contents of bandages, needles and sundry during the battle. Much more importantly though, there was a clearly functioning computer on the counter next to a pile of surgical equipment.
“Minerva?” Jennings whispered.
“On-line, captain,” the computer’s voice replied clearly in his earpiece.
“I’m plugging you into their network,” he said as he connected the portable flash CPU to the desktop system.
“Unbelievably, their password is Brigandine,” Minerva said as she hacked her way through the ship’s defenses.
“Are internal sensors online?” he demanded.
“Sort of. Only a partial scan available.”
“Show me,” he demanded.
The heads-up display in his helmet showed a neon-green outline of the Brigandine and a dozen glowing orange dots. Two were trapped near the engineering section, emergency bulkheads showing as bright red on the display, keeping them in place. The rest of the ship was unavailable as the internal sensors in that area had failed. That left the section they were in and the majority of the middle of the ship with no intel as to how many crewman might be out there waiting for them. At the bow of the Brigandine, where sensors began working again, there was a solitary orange dot on the bridge, whom Jennings assumed to be the captain, then nine dots clustered together along the sole path from the main body of the ship to the bridge at the front.
“Well, that’s a rude way to welcome guests,” Jennings muttered as switched of the HUD.
“What’s up?” Lafayette asked.
“An ambush. Right near the bridge,” he answered. “Nine of them clustered together.”
“Morons,” Fix grumbled. “One grenade and they’re done.”
“We’ve got to get close enough to lob one,” Lafayette pointed out. “That’s a long bit of corridor with no cover. It’s basically a shooting gallery. We get close enough to do anything and au revoir.”
“Oh, but there’s a better way,” Jennings said. “We can always take a walk around them.”
“Mon Dieux, I hate space walking,” Lafayette complained.
“Don’t bitch, you could still get shot on the way there,” Jennings said with a smile, as he readied his weapon and headed down the corridor.
2
They had moved through three corridors, two bulkheads and into the ship’s secondary cargo bay, and Jennings was just beginning to think about how easy this was when a burst of green-yellow energy slammed into the wall above him and sent him diving behind a stack of steel power-lift only crates. Fix and Lafayette had not come through the doorway yet, so they still had cover enough, but neither was able to track where the fire had come from. The silence in the room was punctured by a burst of static from a comm unit. Fix immediately targeted where the sound had come from and sent a barrage of incendiary rounds across the bay toward a large stack of spare parts, shelves of tools and more steel crates. The area lit up in a massive orange fireball and a man in overalls came running out from behind it, screaming wildly, his torso and head on fire. A single shot from Lafayette’s sniper rifle ended his suffering.
As Jennings emerged from cover, Lafayette asked him, “You think he sounded the alarm?”
Before he could answer, the loud sound of footfalls clamping on steel echoed from the hallway opposite them. “That answer your question?” Jennings shouted as he open up full with the rail gun, sending a salvo of fire into the opposite corridor.
The bodies of two men skidded out across the steel floor as an answering barrage came from the defending crew members. Returning to cover once more, Jennings and his crew were able to keep the Brigandine’s crew from advancing, but from the angle of their cover, they could not hit anyone in the corridor. There were only three exits from the bay: the way they had come, the corridor that the Brigandine crew was holding and the airlock.
“This is a stalemate,” Jennings muttered. “We’re going to need to go outside early.”
“Merde,” Lafayette whispered.
“I’ll hold them down as long as I can,” Jennings said as he let loose a shorter burst of fire that was immediately answered. “Once you get the bridge cleared, you’ll probably need to come back and give me a hand.”
“We can’t just leave you here, mon capitaine,” Lafayette argued.
“It is a long walk, Cap’n,” Fix pointed out. “Plus we got ten guys to take out ourselves. That’s going to be a little more difficult without you.”
“Damn,” Jennings swore as Fix fired again. “I’ll come with you. Just give me ten seconds.”
Falling to the floor on his belly, Jennings slithered to the edge of the crates they were using as cover and pulled open the tripod on the rail gun. Punching a few commands into the small interface near the trigger, he then switched the scope from human sight to target acquisition.
“Cover me!” he shouted as he jumped out from behind the crate, set the weapon down, and then scrambled back as fire raked where he had stood.
The rail gun started opening fire on its own, tracking the movements in the corridor opposite them. While in sentry mode, the rail gun could track any movement and open fire on it. They would just need to be careful that they did not pass in front of its line of sight while making their way to the airlock, because it did not know the difference between friend and foe.
Quickly, they made their way to the airlock and Jennings punched the necessary commands to open it. They passed into the intermediate zone where all atmosphere was drained and the artificial gravity kicked off. The doorway to space opened in front of them and all three stepped out, activating the magnetic boots they wore as they did so. The magnets weren’t strong enough to inhibit walking, but were excellent at keeping people from flying off into space, which was something that all three of them wanted to avoid. Slowly, they began the march down the hull of the ship, headed toward the bridge, not seeing the fourth man dressed in an EVA suit coming up behind them with a knife drawn.
The man slashed for Lafayette first, but the attack deflected partially off the breather unit on the back of his EVA suit. Over their comm units, Jennings heard Lafayette cry out in surprise and saw him fall forward, bouncing off the hull of the ship and slowly bounding up and away from the hull. Jennings went to grab him to keep him from floating off into space, but the assailant slashed out at his reaching arm and forced him to back away.
“Fix!” he shouted as he brought up the small back-up rifle Fix had given him and depressed the trigger instinctively, forgetting that smaller plasma weapons needed oxygen around them in order to fire (ships used SCAG rounds- Self Contained Atmosphere Grenades).
The weapon seize
d up in Jennings’ hands, but he reacted quickly as the Brigandine crewman struck again, bringing the malfunctioning weapon up to block the knife attack. Lafayette had already drifted too high off the hull for Fix to reach him without jumping. If he did jump after him, he too would be drifting away through space. Chancing a glance back at Jennings, Fix quickly determined a course of action, yanked the crossbow off his back and fired. The arrow flew straight through the faceplate of the knife-wielding crewman, rupturing the atmosphere within his suit and immediately beginning decompression. Fix supposed it was a small mercy that the man was probably already dead.
“Captain!” he shouted as he leapt off the hull and grabbed Lafayette’s outstretched hand.
As fast as possible, Jennings got over to where they were and was just able to grab Fix’s ankle without his magnetic boots coming off the hull. Easily in the weightless environment, he was able to pull the two men back down until their boots were back on the hull.
“That was overly exciting,” Jennings remarked as he tried to catch his breath.
“Now you know why I brought the crossbow,” Fix observed.
“You bring whatever the hell you want from now on,” Jennings said as they started off once more to the bow of the ship.
The rest of the operation went far more smoothly. They had successfully pinned half of the crew in the aft of the ship, and the half that waited in the atrium headed up to the bridge did not seem to be expecting a half crazed Cajun to throw open the emergency hatch and toss a couple of grenades on top of their heads. Those few that had survived had been more than willing to surrender as they hacked acrid smoke out of their lungs. Fix bound the four survivors together against a pylon with some cable he had found.
“The captain?” Jennings asked the most conscious looking of the four.
“On the bridge,” the captive replied, his voice barely more than a growl.
“Any surprises?”
“Open the door and find out,” the man spat.
“Do you want to be the first one through?” Jennings demanded.
111 Souls (Infinite Universe) Page 11