Shoving the thought aside, Charley made sure her weapons were in order and tried the door that would hopefully admit to the warship’s main deck. It was stuck fast. The activation panel glowed red and stayed that way. Cursing, Charley and Molly tried to find a bypass or override, anything, but there was nothing obvious.
“Looks like we’re stuck in here,” Charley said in an empty voice. “So much for our plan.”
“The lockdown might have been part of the launch protocol,” Molly said. “Now that we’re in an orbital pattern the lockdown should be lifted.”
“That sounds logical,” Charley said, leaning against the wall. “But it hasn’t happened yet.”
“You don’t think the infantry pod could be released from here?” Molly asked.
“I doubt it,” Charley said glumly.
The pair spent the next half hour speculating about their situation. Charley felt dirty and in dire need of a shower. That day she’d traipsed through an underground tunnel through all kinds of muck. And that was before she’d even started battle. She wished she knew what was happening down at the spaceport. Surely the rebels had won the battle? The greatest victory of her pirate career, and she wasn’t even there to enjoy it. What she really wanted was to be with Jack Kovacs again. The dark-haired scrapper had found a place in her heart and she found herself thinking of him quite often.
Molly was searching some wall panels for food. All she found were battle chem kits. It made sense to store them in an infantry pod for use before battle.
Charley had a good look at Molly from behind as her bodyguard went about her work. Molly certainly wasn’t what you’d call thin, but she was a middle-aged woman with a curvy body. Age had directed certain body parts south but there was a lot there to draw a man’s eye. Charley gradually realized that she had an appetite for intimacy right then. That was no surprise, really - she always felt that way after battle. Now that she was relatively safe on board the Imperial warship, with no prospect of progressing her situation, her mind wandered to other things. She wondered if there were any surveillance scanners in the infantry pod. She doubted it very much - surely they would already be dead if that was the case.
Charley approached Molly from behind and took her by the hands.
“Don’t bother with that, Molly,” Charley said. “Recover your energy instead.”
Molly saw that look in Charley’s eyes and turned around. The older woman was already unzipping her suit, revealing a large, practical-looking bra.
“Is this going to cause any problems for you?” Molly asked quietly. The bodyguard was referring to Charley’s other partners.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” Charley murmured, pulling Molly’s suit down over her shoulders. The older woman obliged by unhooking her bra and pulling it away. The women sank to the floor and lost track of time.
Charley had drifted away for several minutes, just basking in her afterglow. A certain change in the background hum compelled her to try the door again. This time the activation panel glowed green and the door opened to reveal a simple chrome corridor.
She looked at Molly who, like her, was naked. “Bring it on,” she said quickly, chuckling as the women pulled on their suits. Charley’s fingers were shaking as she zipped up, terrified that someone would walk past and notice them in there.
Suited and ready, the women took to the corridor carefully. This was clearly one of the riskiest phases of their plan. Without Imperial uniforms they could be rounded up and shot at a moment’s notice. The corridor continued into a T-intersection. They could either continue along the starboard hull or head deeper into the interior of the ship. They appeared to be on one of the lowest decks. The corridors were strangely quiet and empty, but then the Imperials had discharged the bulk of their troops on Frostfire. They wouldn’t quite be running on a skeleton crew, but their numbers should be significantly diminished. Charley chose to head deeper into the ship, looking into adjoining chambers. Many contained armor parts and technical maintenance gear. There was no point in wearing Imperial power armor - that would be as conspicuous as their utility suits.
The corridor split left and right. From the left came a hot, humid waft.
“Air like that can only mean one thing,” Molly said, following the left. Sure enough the pair cam across a wide chamber filled with uniform cyclers. Piles of freshly pressed uniforms lay on low benches. The chamber wasn’t empty by any stretch - three Imperial servants worked industrial pressers amid a cloud of steam.
It was too late to turn around. Making a show of confidence, Charley lifted two uniforms from the clean pile.
“Are these for women?” she asked one of the servants.
The servant nodded, looking at her curiously but saying nothing. Charley was banking on the fact that these people were too low in the food chain to question her presence. Heart in her mouth, Charley led Molly out the other side of the chamber and continued unchallenged. A pair of Imperials entered the corridor down the far end just as Molly dragged Charley into a storage closet. Hoping they hadn’t been spotted, the women changed into crisp, scarlet Imperial uniforms. The material was light and thin, befitting staff who spent most of their time in the safety of the warship. Molly’s uniform was rather tight, especially across her heavy bust, but it would have to do.
“You’ll have to leave your weapons, ma’am,” Molly said as they prepared themselves. Charley knew her bodyguard was right. Regretfully she stashed her sword and pirate pellets, but kept the blasters. She wondered if FIGJAM had survived the battle at the spaceport. She felt a pang of regret for throwing him into the barracks skylight like that.
“Which way now?” the bodyguard asked as they emerged into the corridor and confidently walked past another crew member. Imperial women seemed to have their hair tied in buns, which made Charley and Molly stand out, but there was nothing they could do for now.
“We’re already in the lower deck,” Charley said. “Propulsion, weapons, life support - all the heavy lifting should be down here.”
“I think red lines usually refer to propulsion and warp,” Molly noted, pointing to series of colored lines on the floor.
“Bring it,” Charley said, happy to follow the red.
The women passed several Imperials who second-glanced them, perhaps due to their flowing hair, but no alarm was raised. The ship was probably still in a state of uproar after the calamitous invasion attempt on Frostfire. These people had other things to focus on than a couple of unfamiliar women in the corridor.
At length the corridor they were following opened out into a security desk backed by a force shield. Charley’s heart sank - there was no way they would be admitted to the engine house.
“I should’ve known,” Molly said angrily, slowing down in hesitation.
Charley took her arm. “The only way is through,” she said determinedly. “Follow my lead.”
There were two security personnel at the security desk. They were dressed in scarlet uniforms that provided a little more protection than the standard outfit the women were wearing. One of the men looked up at them with a look of mild disdain.
“Can I help you ladies?” he said with the trace of a leer. Charley instinctively hated men like this. He probably spent his day making lewd comments to his buddy to stave off the boredom of his post.
“I know a sleeper hold,” Molly muttered under her breath. Charley could’ve kissed her as she wandered round to the back of the men, pretending to look at their lightscreens.
“There’s been some unusual activity today,” she said with nerves of steel. Charley almost grinned. “I’ll need copies of your log, please.”
17
It was human nature to shift into self-preservation mode in situations like this, no matter who the challenger was.
“I wasn’t aware there would be an audit,” stammered the second man. “We haven’t had time to consolidate our files.”
“Then we can do it now,” Molly said, leaning over the first man’s shoulder. Her ha
nd grasped his shoulder blade and seemed to stiffen. It only took a second for the man to drift forward, his head resting against the dashboard.
The move was so slow, so gentle and so unexpected that the other man just gaped for a second before beginning to grasp what had happened. Too long. Charley grabbed his head and bought it down hard against the edge of the dash. The man was out cold before he hit the floor.
Molly grabbed the first man’s ID and in one smooth motion pressed it against an emergency bypass under the desk.
The force field flickered, died.
“How did you know about that?” Charley asked.
“Twenty years on security, ma’am,” Molly said with a wink.
On one level Charley felt like asking Molly to stop calling her “ma’am” but the truth was she found it a little sexy.
She followed the bodyguard through the deactivated force field and into the hot air of the engine room. A digital klaxon alarm resounded through the ship.
“Security scanners got us,” Molly said.
“Take this,” Charley said, handing Molly one of her blasters.
The bodyguard led Charley past a series of generators before they arrived at an observation panel that overlooked the huge chamber that contained the interior face of the ship’s massive propulsion bulb. The entire rear wall was a concave bowl lined with electric blue grooves.
“Fuel lines,” Molly explained. “When the warship is in warp or running at high speed this chamber is filled with a morpheus sphere.
Charley had heard of those. She knew they had something to do with the complex physics of warp speed but that was the extent of her knowledge.
“Hello? Do you have authorization?” came a voice from behind them.
An engineer emerged from a quantum server room off to starboard. That was where engine intelligence resided.
“We’re investigating a security breach,” Molly said without missing a beat. “Our men at the desk have been compromised.”
“Did any intruders pass through here?” Charley added.
“The maintenance tunnels are empty,” the engineer said. “I just came from there.”
Charley almost licked her lips.
“Let’s all head back to the security desk,” she suggested, beckoning the engineer to go first. The man did so with a frown, but only got a few steps before Charley clubbed him over the head with her blaster butt.
“Into the quantum server,” Charley said quickly. The women stepped through the softly whirring room with a panoply of glowing data nodes.
“Is there anything you can do here?” Charley asked Molly. They didn’t have much time and she was keen to get going.
“I’m not familiar with quantum intelligence systems,” Molly said. “But you’d be surprised how much they dumb things down for these engineers.”
Molly activated a lightscreen and dragged boxes of information around. At length her eyes lit up.
“I can run an exhaust dump,” she said. “I’ve heard that it’s dangerous to trigger one while a warship is moving.”
“Do it,” Charley urged. “Security forces are en route.”
Molly’s fingers danced over the various data menus in front of her. A number of red warning messages flashed.
“What’s so dangerous about an exhaust dump?” Charley asked.
“If there’s no waste material to jettison and the propulsion bulb is active, the casing can rupture.”
Charley nodded, impressed. “That sounds appropriately bad. Get on with it.”
Molly grinned, her eyes glittering with excitement. She tapped once last data box with a flourish.
“Done,” she said. “The process has begun but may not happen for ten minutes or so.”
There was a hatch at the far end admitting to a dark tunnel. Charley activated the hatch and entered without hesitation. The engine room would be filled with security within a minute.
The women padded through the tunnel warily, guided by a dull light emanating from the floor. At length they encountered a small chamber containing three storage lockers. The lockers were inaccessible - probably DNA coded.
Charley fired a gob of plasma into the top corner of the left locker, waited for it to cool, then prised it open using her gun barrel. There was a unisex air suit inside. It was probably used for external maintenance tasks on the hull.
“Not much use to us,” Charley said dismissively.
“Hold on a second,” Molly said. “When they see that we’ve come into these maintenance tunnels they might just deactivate life support rather than risk losing more personnel.”
Charley frowned. It made sense. Life support on these warships was compartmentalized to different sections. It sounded like a plausible strategy for the Imperials to take.
“Take that suit,” Charley said. “I’ll check the other locker.”
Charley repeated her blaster procedure and found a second suit. For the second time in an hour the women changed their attire, only this time they kept their Imperial uniforms on underneath.
Charley had just taken her first steps in the suit when she began to float into the air. The Imperials had already switched off life support, probably by sealing the tunnels and opening a port to open space.
Charley looked at Molly and smiled, not willing to say anything over the com that linked the suits. The Imperials might well be listening in on the frequency.
It was well that they stayed one step ahead of the enemy - it seemed the Imperials were actually getting their act together and knew roughly where they were.
Charley and Molly headed down one of the side tunnels running from the maintenance locker room. At length they hit a T-intersection and turned left. Charley calculated they were now traversing the port hull of the warship. There were regularly-placed hatches along the port wall and Charley was slightly tempted to see what was out there on the external hull, but such a move was simply too dangerous. There was no way of knowing how fast the warship was moving and they would be exposed out there. On the other hand, the notion of throwing the Imperials off their scent was attractive.
In the end Charley held their bearing, hugging the port wall and making as much ground as they could. If they were heading toward to the front of the hulking vessel, as Charley predicted, then they might chance upon a means of escape in one of the smaller hangars. Warships like this one housed all kinds of small to medium vessels for various objectives. If Charley and Molly could somehow find an Imperial scout and jack it, there was a small chance they get the hell off the warship.
Charley resisted a wave of anxiety as she realised just how remote their chances of escaping the warship actually were.
Her fears were salved a little when the entire ship rocked. They couldn’t hear anything in the vacuum of the maintenance tunnels, but it was likely that the sabotage of the propulsion bulb had been carried out successfully. She looked back at Molly, who was grinning from ear to ear. Hopefully the prop bulb was so damaged the warship was sitting duck for the rebels on the planet’s surface. Finding a gun that could hit it was another matter altogether.
Feeling the reverberation of their handiwork, Charley had a spring in her step as she continued down the maintenance tunnel. It wasn’t likely that the Imperials could pinpoint their exact location so it was possible they could now leave via one of the internal exits and not be confronted with a welcoming party.
Charley stopped at an internal hatch that seemed as likely as any. It wouldn’t open. Of course. The Imperials were controlling life support, and couldn’t allow the women to access to any of the internal exits.
Then again, the Imperials were playing a dangerous game because there was nothing stopping the fugitives from strafing an exit with their plasma blasters in the hope of flooding the next deck with airless vacuum.
Charley didn’t want to kill Imperial crew members in cold blood if she could avoid it, but she wasn’t about to wait in the maintenance tunnels while the air in their suits ran out.
Whoeve
r was supervising their capture was clearly thinking along the same lines because the women came crashing to the floor as normal gravity was restored.
“They’re gonna rush the tunnels,” Charley said, activating the nearest hatch. It hissed open, admitting to another storage bay. The women removed their suits and calmly made their way down an axial corridor that offered portside views into space.
There were Imperial staff going about their business, only this time Charley and Molly received more than casual interest. It was only a matter of time before someone identified them. Just as the women quickened their pace a patrol of marines turned the corner ahead of them. Charley grabbed Molly and ducked into a side passage. She felt a stab of anxiety when she saw that the corridor ended abruptly at a drop tube that was currently engaged. Molly herded Charley towards the tube.
“Kneel behind me,” the bodyguard said. “This could be tricky.”
Charley shook her head and assumed a firing position next to Molly.
“Let’s do this together,” she said with a grin.
With bated breath Charley waited for the first marine to appear. These troopers were dressed in light shipboard armor that was possible to penetrate with blasters provided the attacker was skilled and clean.
Molly was both of those things. The first marine’s head snapped back as he received a plasma bolt to the neck. He tried to stem the fountain of blood with a scarlet-gloved hand but but it was a losing battle.
The second marine knelt and fired but the women already had him in their collective sights. Charley’s targeting computer guided her shots to the marine’s most glaring weak point - his fingers. A marine wasn’t able to fire if he was missing the necessary appendages. Sure enough the marine’s blaster clattered to the ground along with a fore and index finger. The drop shaft behind them emitted a chime to indicate it was ready to receive them. Molly shoved Charley into the tube and received a blast to her leg for her trouble. Charley dragged her bodyguard into the shaft and sent it to a lower level. She figured there would be less marines in the bowels of the ship.
The Pirate Commander (The Space Pirate Chronicles Book 3) Page 10