Two minutes later, Esther stepped off the elevator and into the hangar bay. Noah was waiting for her, flanked by Sergeant Hilborn and Corporal Tenine. Esther accepted her security team—she’d actually expected Noah would have demanded more. She snapped her helmet into place and let one of the Navy deck hands attach her propulsion pack. After a quick integrity check, the deck hand gave her the green light, and along with Noah and her two bodyguards, stepped up to the curtain and pushed through it, her stomach giving its customary lurch as she went from normal gravity to zero G.
At only a klick away, the Calypso Queen looked huge. The two Albatrosses stood off either end, waiting to take action should they need to. EVA-suited figures moved around the ship, several clustered around the ship’s aft where the Mount Fuji had disabled the drives.
With Noah behind her, Hilborn and Tenine took positions on either side of her as she goosed her jets to make the crossing. At max acceleration, then flip and max deceleration, Esther could reach the ship within a minute. That wasn’t a good idea, though. More than a few Marines or sailors had come in too hot and suffered the consequences. Slow and steady was the more conservative course.
“CO, we’ve got a situation here,” Fred Kingery passed on the P2P. “With the crew.”
“What is it?”
“The Dark Tiders, well, they . . . ”
“Meet me at Dozer-Three’s breach. I’ll be there in 90 seconds.”
No one should be able to monitor a Marine P2P circuit, but Captain Kingery had been flustered, and she wanted to give him a few moments to compose himself.
“Noah, Kingery just called me. There’s an issue with the crew.”
“What is it?”
“He didn’t tell me. Didn’t sound good, though.”
She switched to Captain Montoya’s P2P, and asked, “Destiny, have you found out anything, yet? About booby-trapping?”
“I questioned two so far. Their commander had wanted to rig the ship, but it looks like they overruled her. The two I’ve interrogated both believe the ship is clean.”
They “believe” is the relevant term here. Their commander could have done it anyway without their knowledge.
“Have you questioned the commander yet?”
“That’s a negative. Seems like her crew killed her when she refused to surrender.”
Well, shit. Not a good command structure. Sucks to be her, I guess.
“Understood. I’ll be aboard in 30 seconds.”
Esther had her EVA suit on auto, and it fired off a series of small jets, bringing her gently to the gate of Dozer-Three. Sergeant Hilborn slid in before her, which seemed overkill as she could see on her helmet display that only Marines were on the other side, but she let it slide. Better her Marines were more conservative when the situation allowed than be too rash.
She slid headfirst into the tube and right on Hilborn’s ass, pulled herself to the breach where two Marines pulled her out and to her feet. Captain Kingery ran up just as she stood. He started his report, but she wanted Noah to hear it as well, so she held up a hand to stop him for the moment until her brother was standing beside her.
In a rush, he reported that the ship was secure, and all known pirates were accounted for.
“The commander is dead, right?” she asked.
“Killed by her own troops,” he said. “That’s what they say, at least. We’re pulling the recordings. Not just for that, though, for the crew, too.”
“I take it from your demeanor that the crew suffered at the hands of the pirates?”
“Yes, ma’am. What’s left of them are in their bridge.”
“Show me.”
She started to follow when Hilborn and Tenine pushed their way forward past the two Charlie Company Marines who were there with Kingery. In other circumstances, their marking of their territory might have been humorous. At the moment, it wasn’t.
The bridge was only 30 meters from the breach point. Esther steeled herself as she entered, ready to ask the remaining crew what had happened to their peers.
Only, there were no remaining crew. When Captain Kingery had said “what’s left of them,” he hadn’t meant survivors. He meant what was physically left of their bodies.
The bridge was an abattoir. The bodies of nine crew members lay on the deck behind the line of controls. Each body was missing a head. The heads were propped up on the control shelves, lifeless eyes watching over the rest of their bodies. Blood had pooled up to three centimeters in places.
Esther had seen Marines blown apart, but she didn’t think she’d ever seen so much blood in her life. The coppery smell was gagging, and she had to swallow several times to keep her stomach from rebelling.
“When did this happen?” she asked, her voice calm even if she wanted to shout.
“When we appeared off her beam,” Captain Kingery said.
Which explains why the blood is still liquid.
Esther looked up to a brightly-clad body sitting in the captain’s chair, her turquoise and yellow fatigues stained by a single wound of some sort to her chest.
“The pirate commander?” she asked, pointing with her chin.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And let me guess. Her crew says she did all of this?”
Captain Kingery nodded.
Esther didn’t buy that one bit. Even with a vibroblade, it wasn’t easy to cut off a person’s head. And there was no way Esther thought nine merchantmen would simply lay there and wait for the commander to get to them. No, the pirate crew was involved up to their eyeballs.
But that wasn’t Esther’s concern. They would get interrogated by the best the FCDC had to offer. Montoya might not be an expert in extracting information, but the FCDC ITT teams were, and the pirates wouldn’t be able to hide anything from them.
“Steve, we’ve got a big problem here,” she passed back to the Mount Fuji’s CO.
“Not that big, Esther. Chief Bullstaff and the CHENG think they can repair propulsion in four or five hours. The Calypso Queen can get underway by herself and transit to Reece Station.”
“How are they going to do that without a crew? The Dark Tide commander killed them all.”
There was dead silence for a moment, then a mystified, “What?”
“Cut off their heads. All nine of them.”
“You’re sure?” he asked in what was almost a pleading tone.
“Yeah, pretty sure. I’m standing in this slaughterhouse right now,” she said before sending him her feed.
“Oh, my God! I . . . what do, I mean, I’ve got to report this.”
“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.”
“Can you get back here? We need to figure out what we’re going to do.”
“Are the passengers secure?” she asked Captain Kingery.
“Yes, ma’am. We’re matching the manifest now with them.”
“I’m on my way,” she told Anderson, then to Noah, “I’m going back. Watch out for things over here, OK?”
“Roger that.”
She turned to Hilborn and said, “Well, Sergeant, let’s get back to the Fujiyama.”
***************
Four hours later, Esther leaned back in her chair, hands clasped behind her head while she listened to Commander Anderson go over once again why he couldn’t leave an officer in charge of the Calypso Queen.
“I’ve got the XO and two more in sickbay, and now with this second contingency, I just can’t afford the manpower.”
Esther lowered her arms and swung back forward, saying, “But we can’t just leave the ship floating in space.”
“She won’t be. The propulsion will be up and running in another twenty minutes.”
“At 20%.”
“Still, she can get underway.”
Esther and the Mount Fuji’s CO were in his stateroom, hashing out alone what had become a bone of contention during the meeting in the wardroom. She completely understood his position. He was shorthanded, and he’d just received orders to transit to the
Boclyn System for a possible interdiction—ironically as result of intel received by their prisoners. Esther didn’t give much weight to the intel, but she knew the Admiral had to act on it, and that meant taking the Mount Fuji away from the Calypso Queen long before a qualified crew could be formed and arrive to take the ship to Reece Station and the quadrant naval headquarters.
And of course, this had to coincide when the XO and two other officers were quarantined with one of the ultra-viruses which were making the rounds through human space. The ship’s surgeon said this was a particularly nasty virus, and there was a good chance he’d have to put the three sailors into stasis until they could get a higher-level treatment.
Esther had one out, one way for the Mount Fuji to leave on her new mission while still allowing the Calypso Queen to get underway, but it was a long shot, one she didn’t think would get accepted by the Navy brass. She wasn’t sure she wanted it, either. The new mission would probably be a blockade, but there was always the possibility of boots on the ground.
Screw it. We can’t just leave the passengers to fend for themselves.
“I have a possible solution,” she said hesitantly.
“Unless you have a way to get a crew here via instantaneous transport, I don’t see how.”
“What if we had a crew already here?”
“I told you, Esther, Navy regs require a commissioned officer to take over an abandoned vessel. I can’t spare one, and the Admiral agrees. And he was reluctant to give CHENG and the chief the time to even repair the ship.”
“Do the regs say that the commissioned officer be Navy?”
“What? Navy? Well, no, not exactly. But he or she needs to be underway qualed. That’s why I can’t leave Ensign Evers, Wolter, Liang, or Lieutenant (JG) Ahaad.”
“How about a ship’s master rating?”
“A ship’s master? That’s a civilian rating, but probably . . . yeah, that would work for a non-combatant. That’s probably what they’ll send over if they can’t get a naval officer, come to think of it.”
“I’ve got one.”
“Got one what?”
“A ship’s master. Captain Peaslee. Before he became a Marine, he’d earned his ship’s master license. Kept his rating up all these years, too. From what he told me, he signs on with commercial liners while on leave to earn extra credits.”
“Peaslee? Your H&S Company Commander?”
“The very same.”
“Hmm,” Steve said before sinking into silence.
Esther could almost read the thoughts cross his face. The Navy, like any governmental organization, fiercely guarded its turf, and no matter how close the two services were, she didn’t think they would want a Marine to take over a ship, even a commercial liner. The alternative, though, was to leave the ship abandoned in space until a civilian crew was ferried out to it. Would Anderson see it that way, however?
“Is his license registered? I mean, is it current?”
“Yes, it is.”
Peaslee, you better not be shitting me.
It was the captain who had approached Esther with the idea. She hadn’t checked up on his claim, so she was taking his word that all his paperwork was up to date.
It took a few more moments, but Anderson made up his mind, telling Esther, “OK, let’s do it. I’ll leave an engineering and bridge team on board, but if Peaslee is a master, then he’s in command.”
“You don’t want to ask the admiral, first?” Esther asked, surprised that a Navy commander would take that kind of decision upon his shoulders.
“Yeah, I want to, but he might say no, and then where are we? Like you said, we owe it to the passengers.
“I’ll order F1 ready to ferry over Peaslee, departing in . . . can he make 15 minutes?”
“He’ll make it. I’ll be sending two Marines with him, and I’m leaving the sergeant major on board, too. He’s still on the ship.”
“OK, sounds good. Let’s just hope this doesn’t blow up in our faces, Esther.”
I’m with you on that, Esther thought to herself as she rushed to tell Peaslee, who was waiting in the wardroom, to gather his shit and get going. Believe you me, I’m with you on that.
SS CALYPSO QUEEN
Chapter 16
Noah
“What do they want now?” Captain Peaslee asked BM3 Sturdevant.
“Same thing. They want you to take the ship back to Solznetya 3.”
“And I’m saying the same thing back to them. We can’t take them back home. Our orders are firm; we’re heading to Reece Station.”
“They’re saying you don’t have the authority to make that decision, sir.”
The captain rolled his eyes and looked over to Noah, who was sitting in the cargo officer’s chair.
“You know and I know the regs, sir,” Noah said. “But maybe they need to hear it from you.”
Sturdevant looked up at Noah with obvious relief in his eyes. They’d been putting a lot on the shoulder of the young sailor, and Noah knew it was time to push the problem up the ladder.
“Maybe you’re right. I’m not going to the galley, though. I’m staying right here on the bridge. Why don’t you get two or three of the ringleaders and escort them back up here,” the captain said.
“Make one of them Tennyson,” Noah told the sailor.
“You’d think they’d be a little grateful,” he said to Noah after Sturdevant left. “We did save them from the pirates, after all.”
“Never underestimate the fleeting strength of gratitude, sir.”
“Yeah, I know. I just want to get this voyage over and done with, and with as little stress as possible.”
“I don’t know, sir. What with you commanding a ship now, maybe you can put this on your resume and get a transfer to the Navy,” Noah said.
The captain didn’t bother to say anything but merely raised his middle finger.
He’d had it right, though. Noah was anxious to deliver the ship, then get back to the Mount Fuji, particularly if the battalion was going to be engaged again. He understood why Esther had put him on the Queen—he didn’t really have a tactical billet should it come to combat, and the experience he’d been gaining as a sergeant major was exactly what the current situation called for. Captain Peaslee was responsible for the ship, but he was to make sure all the working parts meshed together to enable the captain to get the Queen back to quadrant headquarters.
It shouldn’t be that difficult, even with the engines at 20%. There was more than enough food manufacturing, and the entertainment system was operational. He had the three-man team in engineering, monitoring the system and keeping it running. With two helmsmen, that gave him five sailors, which was light when compared with normal staffing, but still doable considering the high degree of automation on the ship. With Captain Peaslee, Sergeant Hilborn, Corporal Tenine, and the jack-of-all-trades Sturdevant, there were more than enough people to get the ship from Point A to Point B.
But now, it seemed as if the natives were getting restless—all 2,677 of them.
Noah had met with their corporate handler, a particularly poorly-qualified woman named Naomi Harris-Mink. It had quickly become obvious that she was in over her head, so Noah had been forced to deal with L’Troy Tennyson and Guang Morris, two men who’d taken over as passenger representatives. Morris seemed to have ulterior motives that Noah couldn’t quite fathom, and that bothered him. Tennyson, on the other hand, seemed like a decent enough guy. Still, it should be an uneventful passage—should be.
A few minutes later, Sturdevant returned with four passengers: Tennyson, Morris, and two others Noah didn’t recognize.
“I thought he was in charge,” Morris said, nodding at Noah. “But Sturdevant said you are?”
Hilborn, who’d been sitting in the comms suite chair, stood up at the underlying belligerence in the man’s tone. He subtly shifted his weight on the balls of his feet, and Noah knew he was ready to react. Noah caught his eye and gave a tiny shake of his head to call the sergeant
off. No one needed a confrontation on the bridge.
“I’m the captain of the ship, yes, so I am in charge. I’m Captain Jeff Peaslee, United Federation Marines,” he said in a calm, but firm, voice.
If Morris thought it odd that a Marine was in command, he didn’t show it. He might not even know the difference between a Navy and a Marine captain.
“Well, if you’re in charge, you need to take us back to Solznetya.”
“And Rubble,” one of the other men said.
“As I’m sure BM3 Sturdevant told you, I am required to take you to the quadrant headquarters. Once there, all of you will be taken to your final destination.”
“We’re not going to Fortuna,” Morris said with conviction.
Captain Peaslee looked nonplussed as he said, “Where you go from there is up to you and the authorities. I’m only charged with getting the Calypso Queen to headquarters.”
“I don’t think you understand, Captain,” the fourth person, a 60-something woman with short, gray hair. “I’m Geste Madigar, and I’m a lawyer.”
A lawyer? Going out as contract labor? Did she get disbarred? Noah wondered.
“What we have here is a clear breech of contract. Sunshine Ahead, LLC, promised us safe passage to Fortuna. Obviously, that didn’t happen, so the contract is null and void. As such, you are required to return us to our embarkation point, Solzentya 3.”
“And Rubble,” the third person interjected once more.
Noah had never heard of Rubble. He wanted to pull out his PA and query it but didn’t want to be a distraction.
“If you are a lawyer, Ms. Madigar,” Captain Peaslee said, “then you are aware of maritime law. The Calypso Queen was seized by pirates and was recovered by a governmental force, in this case, the Federation military. The ship was damaged during the process.
“At your hands,” the lawyer said.
He ignored the statement, continuing, “The UAM Charter of Passage is clear on what happens next. We are to proceed to the nearest designated governmental facility where claims and counterclaims can be filed, and in this case, where repairs can be conducted.”
Blood United (The United Federation Marine Corps' Lysander Twins Book 5) Page 14