Path to Europa

by Garion Swann

  "We've tried to jump the ship but no luck, we only have one try left, I'm not sure why it didn't work the first time. With no power I can't track down the fault fast enough," Tina explained,

  "Damn, okay leave it, for now, we will try again when we need to. For now, focus on keeping them out of engineering. I'm going to look for the Captain, I need a ladder to get back up there." Jenny said pointing at the open grate.

  "Alex," the voice said, "Wake up!" Alex came opened his eyes and saw Dylan's face very close to his, he mustered all the energy he had and spat at Dylan.

  "How kind," Dylan said wiping the mixture of blood and saliva off his face. "You're pathetic you know that. A proper Captain would have made it out of this by now, a proper Captain would not have let his ship be boarded, a proper Captain.." Alex head-butted Dylan who stepped back covering his nose.

  "Ass hole," Alex spat.

  "Well Alex, the time has come to repay your debt to Lady Jean," Dylan said, keeping well out of range of Alex's head.

  "I owe that bitch nothing," Alex said attempting to muster some confidence. Dylan hit him, he had been hit so many times but had not gotten used to the pain.

  "How dare you insult our lady like that, if she were here she would have you hung by your balls for that," Dylan responded.

  "Did she take your balls away, Dylan? That would explain a lot" Alex replied, he knew he'd be winding up Dylan but had stopped caring.

  "We're going to take over your ship, then we are going to take everything you own, anytime you resist I will personally kill a member of this crew as slowly and painfully as possible. Then if you run out of crew members, I will strap you to a torpedo and set you on your way, making sure you stay alive for a very long time, undetectable, on a long road to death.

  "My, what have they done to you, Dylan. Even though you were the grumpiest person I've ever met, you were a fine XO, what turned you?"

  "Self-preservation is of utmost importance," he replied.

  "What's that fleet motto you kept telling me, look out for one's crew before oneself. Where did that go, Dylan? You betrayed this crew, handed us over the people who are going to kill us, how does that make you feel? How much did they pay you?"

  "You're boring me, I want your communications codes for Trulen," Dylan demanded. Alex thought fast, he did have access to the Trulen communications net, more than most people as he had premium trader status, but he didn't have any of the Trulen military codes if that's what Dylan was after. Alex realised this meant he and his ship wasn't Lady Jean's only target, she was new to this part of space so it could be she wanted to scout the field, see how powerful the likes of Trulen were.

  "What makes you think I have access to those codes?" He asked wanting to see how much Dylan knew.

  "Premium trader status gives you a lot of nice benefits, don't play games with me Alex, we both know you have those codes, and I'm going to get them. There's an easy way or a hard way, please resist I have been looking forward to the hard way so much." Dylan's tone was serious, he was no longer mocking Alex, he was giving him a very blunt and severe threat. This used to be his XO, someone he trusted his ship, someone who he discussed contracts and finances with. Every so often they even confided in each other, generally over a bottle of Whiskey, according to Dylan it was the proper stuff as well, not the processed stuff they mass produce. Now though, the same man he once shared a bottle with is interrogating him. Alex let out a little laugh.

  "Why are you laughing?" Dylan snapped. Alex knew Dylan was not very good at this sort of thing, he got angry too quickly.

  "Oh I just remembered a story you told me of your heroics in the fleet, it was over a bottle of, ah what was it?" Alex made it look like he was thinking, "the ‘76 batch of that whiskey you like."

  "The seventy-six was piss! I've told you that!" Dylan snapped again. He was very protective over his whiskey. Alex knew he didn't like the ‘76 batch.

  "Talking of heroics, where's that gone, Dylan?" Alex asked, he was trying to break Dylan, which was odd as Dylan was supposed to be interrogating him.

  "I am warning you, Alex, I could make you scream if I wanted to. The codes now." He said, he'd clearly given himself a mental kick in the backside. He would probably be harder to annoy now.

  "What codes?" Alex asked.

  "What did I say about games," Dylan said calmly.

  "I don't remember, the last hit must've caused some issues, don't think I'll be much use to you know. Maybe you should come back another day?" Alex taunted.

  "You shouldn't try my patience," Dylan was struggling to keep calm.

  "What's the rush, grab a Whiskey could be like old times. Why do you want access to Trulen comes so much?" Alex did actually want to know, he wondered how much further he could push Dylan.

  "I've had enough, that damn truth seeker can get it out of you." Dylan got up to walk out.

  "I had a feeling you would give up quickly, all those stories of your time in the fleet, you're just a sad old bastard who seeks the glory days. I pity you." Alex turned his head from Dylan who looked as though he was about to leap across the room at Alex. His radio coming to life, interrupting anything he was about to do.

  "Sir, we've found Owens and Johnson, they're dead." The voice said.

  "Understood, nobody goes out alone," Dylan ordered. He turned to leave, but before going he switched off the portable light that had been lighting Alex's quarters, plunging Alex into darkness.

  "Enjoy the dark Alex, it's the truth seekers favourite," Dylan said leaving the room.

  Jenny had left engineering after they had used a ladder to get her back into the maintenance shaft, she was worried about the engineering staff, they would not fare well in an all-out attack, even with their advantage of the light wall. They were not combat trained, and the attackers most likely were. She tried to put the thought to the back of the mind, she was of more use to the ship sneaking around taking down intruders and gathering intelligence. She dropped out of the shaft, she was close to the port docking hatch, she wanted to see the ship they used to board the Michelangelo, if she could get onboard it, she could gather a lot of intelligence, it would allow her to see if there are any other ships nearby ready to attack. They looked through the port airlock, and there was nothing but space, she'd needed to try the starboard airlock. She couldn't get back up the maintenance shaft without assistance this time, so she'd used the corridors. Slowly she made her way through the darkness, relying on her knowledge of the ship to guide her way, every so often using a dim light to check she was in the right place. After several minutes Jenny could see light coming from the starboard airlock, the light would be from the docked ship. She had no idea how many people would be onboard or even how big the ship was, she weighed up the risks of going on board, she would lose her advantage of being in the dark as the corridors of the docked ship would most likely be lit. The information, however, could be invaluable to the effort to take back the ship. She moved quickly aiming and firing silenced rounds at the two guards by the airlock, she promptly boarded the ship, slowing to allow her eyes time to adjust to the light, she'd spent the last hour in mostly total darkness, the bright lights of the ship were hurting her eyes, but she put up with it. Keeping her weapon raised she checked all her corners. Reading some signage on the walls she headed towards the command centre, she made her way down another long corridor, it would be unfortunate to be spotted on such a long corridor.

  She ducked to the side when she heard movement from around a corner, it was somebody whistling, she aimed her weapon and prepared to fire.

  "Maybe that's not such a good idea?" A voice from behind her said, she felt the barrel of his weapon press against the back of her head,

  "Seemed good to me, although now maybe not so much," she replied, raising her hands and her weapons, she slowly put the gun the floor and covertly activated the automatic trigger with time delay, she made sure to point the weapon at the feet of the original person she'd aimed at, they had now approached with their w
eapon drawn. She stood back up and raised her hands.

  "You got me," she said pretending to give in to them.

  The second person moved in to restrain her when her weapon fired, the first man screamed, and it startled the second, she spun grabbing his arm, firing his weapon into the first man. Stamping on the second's foot and wrenching his weapon from his grip, she didn't hesitate in taking her first opportunity to fire at the man. Both of them slumped to the floor dead she added them both to her count.

  "One hundred and twenty-seven," she said to herself. Jenny didn't waste time moving the bodies she took their weapons, picked her sidearm up moved quickly checking corners. Anyone on board would have heard weapon fire as it was not silenced like hers. Jenny found the command centre, this was a strike ship so assumed most the crew would be involved in the boarding, there were three in the command centre and she just walked straight in, firing at all three, she took down two but missed the third, she ducked into cover as the third returned fire. The third made the standard mistake of using a whole magazine in an opening attack, the moment she heard him reloading she rushed him, firing one bullet which struck his neck. Blood was shooting out the man's neck, he dropped to the floor trying to stop the blood but soon dropped lifeless like the other two,

  "One hundred and thirty. Didn't think I'd get that high this year." She chuckled to herself. The people she'd just dealt with had not had a chance to lock down the command controls so she had full access, she patched into the ships feed that connected it to the Michelangelo, the ship was leeching power, that would explain why the jump start didn't work. She disabled the leech and accessed the power systems, she was shocked to see no software security on this ship whatsoever.

  She started to disable the programs that had control over the Michelangelo's power systems. Considering her next move, she began setting the ship to detach, and self destruct. That plan, however, would leave heavily armed soldiers on the Michelangelo with no escape route, which meant they would probably go on the offensive even more so. She saved the program and set it up as a remote trigger if she needed it. Before leaving she quickly reconnected to the Michelangelo's power systems and initiated a transfer to recharge the batteries, she wouldn't be able to restart the core from here, but it meant they had an extra attempt.

  Jenny made a swift exit from the docked ship and soon returned to the darkness of the Michelangelo's corridors, next task was to find Alex, taking out as many of the enemies as she could on the way.

  Grant opened his eyes, the few lights he could see were blurred, he could hear voices but couldn't focus on them. He tried to move but could none of his limbs responded, pain shot down his arm, so he stopped trying. He could remember the ship going dark, but not much after that, he focused and tried to replay events in his head, he remembered talking to engineering, but couldn't remember what it was about. He also remembered showing Jenny something, but couldn't remember what it was. Irrelevant thoughts filled his mind trying to piece together what had happened, he wasn't sure what was even wrong with him. Then he thought about Janie, all other thoughts cleared his mind, and he just had an image of the beautiful Janie. The thought of her made him happy, he tried to smile but couldn't. Janie's imaged stayed with him as everything went dark.

  A flash and loud high pitched noise overcame the senses of most the engineering staff, before the knew it the group of invaders stormed engineering looking for targets, the light wall still made this difficult, there were more this time at least ten that Tina had counted as she managed to focus after the concussion grenade went off. The engineers began to return fire from the darkness, they'd taken up defensive positions all over engineering, a few were up high on the railings shrouded in darkness, firing down to the invaders. Their strategy was proving successful, they'd managed to put down half of the attackers but had taken losses, Tina had seen at least three of her team fall to the floor, most likely dead, she had downed one of the people. The engineers firing from above were getting most the effective shots. The attacker's plan, if they even had one seemed to focus on where the defenders were shooting from last time they attacked, were they as well trained as Tina thought? She felt like a trained group of soldiers would have taken into account that the defenders could take different positions.

  She was snapped back to the current situation when the room was lit up by a fireball, the sound of something exploding startled everyone in the room, Tina panicked, a stray bullet must have hit a fuel line, with no power the automatic safeties would not kick in, she needed to get power back as soon as possible.

  She rushed over to Erin, nearly tripping over several items that were on the floor she couldn't see due to the darkness, she was not using a torch so couldn't see everything, Erin was tending to an injured engineer while the assault continued.

  "We need to try again now, or the ship is going up in flames!" She screamed.

  "Let's do it," Erin said leaping up, they both ran back across engineering, Tina was sure she felt bullets fly past her, but decided not to think how close to death she could've have been or still is. Tina started removing the cables from the original batteries but noticed they still had a full charge, they should have been depleted with the last attempt.

  "Erin, the batteries are still charged,"

  "That's odd," Erin used the batteries interface to check where the power had come from. "External source, well however it happened, let's try,"

  As before the triggered a core restart using the batteries, the core began to glow but soon died away.

  "Shit!" Erin said, "I know what's causing this, hang on." Erin ran to the door to the core and ripped open the panel next to it, she pulled a lever which automatically constrained power flow in the event of an emergency. As soon as she released it, she shouted to Tina.

  "Do it!" Erin screamed as blood started pouring from her abdomen.

  "NO!" Tina screamed, she watched as her love started to shake, trying to hold the wound a bullet had made. As she began to drop to the floor, she held her hand out to Tina who had rushed to help her, before Tina could get to her Erin was already slumped on the floor, lifeless. Rage engulfed Tina who grabbed her weapon and fired continually at the person who had killed her beloved, she riddled him with holes, and he soon dropped to the floor, Tina screamed and carried on shooting until the weapon clicked empty, even then she didn't stop pulling the trigger. She had revenge, but that did not take away the pain. She froze where she stood watching the corpse of Erin's killer. Tina took a bullet to the chest and fell to the floor, she'd stood for too long, she had been noticed by her scream, and continual firing, one of the attackers, had seized the opportunity. Tina was in agony, but she was not going to let Erin die for nothing, she crawled over to the battery determined. The darkness hid her from the enemy, she knew where she was going as she could see the dim light of the batteries interface. She triggered the jump start for the third time, this time the ship came to life, systems powered on and light filled the room, the automatic suppression systems kicked in and stopping the fire before it could do more damage. Fighters on both sides who until now had been looking for weapon flashes to locate targets now had a better view of their opponents. The engineers had the advantage of numbers and were surrounding the attackers. The attackers tried to retreat but were quickly taken down in the crossfire. Tina could no longer clutch the wound on her chest, she felt herself growing weak as if her life was being drained out of her, she tried to crawl to where Erin's body was but couldn't make it.

  "Engineering this is the bridge," Mark's voice came over the comm.

  "Go ahead bridge," Micheal, who had come to attend Erin answers.

  "It's great to hear your voice Michael, what's your status,"

  "Engineering is secure, the attackers are down, there will probably be more, we'll sure up the defence," he reported,

  "Casualties?" Mark asked,

  "We've taken a beating, at least five dead, probably will be more, we could do with some help down here," He asked.

&
nbsp; "We can't get to you yet, we're still locked in on the bridge, and there are enemies all over the ship. Have you heard from the Captain or Jenny?" Mark asked,

  "Jenny dropped by briefly but soon went off again, the Captain is a hostage, Jenny's trying to find him,"

  "If anyone can she can, keep us updated Michael." Mark cut the comm.

  Power returning had given Alex hope, he was no longer in the dark, and it had interrupted the truth seeker who had been torturing him for what felt like hours, the psychotic man had cut him, used electricity to make him scream in pain and hurt him in ways that would remain painful but not incapacitate him. The truth seeker seemed surprised that power had returned, which made Alex think his crew had control of the situation. The crew would not have been ready for something like this, Alex wasn't prepared for something like this, he nor they were trained in combat, they were traders. They didn't prepare for hostage situations, sieges or interrogations.

  If the crew still held the bridge, power back would give the control over the situation, they could use the sensors to find out where the enemy ‘headquarters' was and mount an offensive. Alex would have probably just decompressed the whole section into space, he wondered if that was the hours of torture talking. After the worst experience of his life, he knew if he had the chance he would put a bullet into Dylan's, the truth seeker and Lady Jean's heads without hesitation.

  Dylan entered the room, looking frustrated.

  "Thing's not going your way," Alex said weakly.

  "Shut it," Dylan said sharply.

  "Jenny's been sneaking around killing my people, but now the darkness has been lifted it won't be long before she's found. I want you to order her to surrender, say you've agreed to hand over the ship to spare lives on both sides."

  "What makes you think I'd do that if she's killing your people, I'm looking forward to the moment she comes through that door and puts a bullet in your head," Alex replied. He didn't care anymore.